This is the third in a series of posts on the rapid and ongoing adoption of NextGen procedures and processes, and what that means for 21st-century flight crews. Perhaps after last month’s post you have had the chance to browse the FAA’s NextGen Website; chances are you were surprised to see how quickly and widely …
This is the second in a series of posts on the rapid and ongoing adoption of NextGen procedures and processes, including RNP approaches, and what that means for 21st-century flight crews. Several weeks ago we posted an introduction to a series of posts on NextGen. As an illustration of how fast and easy it is …
This is the first in a series of posts on the rapid and ongoing adoption of RNAV (RNP) and RNP AR approaches, and what that means for 21st-century flight crews. This past month, as part of my own training, I flew my first RNAV (RNP) AR approach with an RF Leg. It was done in …
One of the most interesting aspects of my professional life in aviation is following developments in technology across our industry (and others related to it), and tracking the most promising advances into widespread operational use. I consider myself to be among the lucky few in our industry who not only help in adapting technology into …
In our last posting we introduced what we think will be one of the most enabling aviation technologies of the coming decade, SVGS, which is short for Synthetic Vision Guidance System. With the fusion of enabling technology that already exists on many flight decks, it could enter every kind of aircraft cockpit faster than any …
Instead of starting the new year with some lofty goals for improving overall airmanship in advanced aircraft, or looking back at what positive trends we can bring forward from last year, we decided to get out in front of what we think will become one of the hottest aviation technology topics of the next decade. …
An oft-used idiom to describe how quietly Progress changes the way we do things is that it does so one day at a time. Gradually we find ourselves wondering how it is that we have come so far while noticing so little about how our working environment has changed down the years. Recently, partly in …
Some accidents stick with us, just refusing to go away. Or maybe some accidents stick with us because we keep finding new ways to learn from them. One of these impactful events that seems to have unusually high resonance is Asiana 214, the Boeing 777 that crashed on landing at SFO during visual flight conditions, …
One of our goals in maintaining this blog is to help keep the focus of our profession on the flying. This task is increasingly difficult in the face of so much commentary on the future of human-machine interaction, much of it following the high profile aviation accidents of the past 5 years. More than at …
I often hear from experienced modern aviators when I’m presenting the precepts of Automation Airmanship to groups, both large and small: “What’s so different about your approach to operating the contemporary flight deck from what most people are already doing?” and, “Why should I adopt it?” Two great questions; to be honest, they are the …