CommercialSafety in Avionics: Watching Your (Aircraft) Weight In an industry where safety is based on the twin pillars of precise procedures and accurate measurements, it seems strange that "informed guesstimates" are used to determine an aircraft’s weight and balance.…
ATM ModernizationIndustry Scan Caravan Fitted for IFR J.A. Air Center, West Chicago, Ill., recently completed a new Cessna 208B Caravan with a state-of-the-art avionics suite approved for instrument flight rules. The aircraft is fitted with…
CommercialAvionics System Design: Designing with PC104 Technology As people try and port various kinds of intelligent displays and systems into aircraft, especially for special-purpose data applications, they feel considerable pressure to use popular technology from the embedded microprocessor world–in…
ATM ModernizationAn ATC Upgrade of Olympian Size Athens, city of antiquity and tourism, has a new airport–one fit for the 21st century, and for the Olympic Games that the city will host in 2004. Due to be inaugurated this…
Business & GABarcoView's ISIS, Goddess of Light? Air traffic controllers, spending their days staring at screens, know the importance of clear, easy-to-read images. Screen makers know that, too, and seek to offer better clarity in their products–which is why…
ATM ModernizationRunway Incursions: The Threat on the Ground The world’s worst aviation accident occurred in 1977, almost a quarter of a century ago, at Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands. Five hundred and eighty-three persons were killed when a…
CommercialProduct Focus: CVRs & FDRs First, the disclaimer: It’s impossible for me to write about cockpit voice recorders (CVRs) and digital flight data recorders (FDRs) with less than a passing interest in the subject. I fly jets…
ATM ModernizationEditor's Note: Cynics and the FAA's ATO Former President Clinton’s Dec. 7, 2000 executive order to establish a performance-based air traffic control (ATC) entity, called the Air Traffic Organization (ATO), has drawn its share of cynicism. The order "sounds…