Those of our readers who have looked at the various postings on System Wide Information Management (SWIM) will be familiar with the abbreviation PENS which stands for “Pan European Network Service”. PENS will allow air navigation service providers from 38 countries to exchange operational data communications across a common network for the first time. Following… Continue reading SITA selected to provide PENS – but SWIM is more than just ANSPs!
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Aircraft Operational Fuel Savings & Noise Reduction – Past and Future
The way pilots fly their aircraft can have a significant effect on the economics, fuel consumption and environmental performance of their airline. Many airlines and Air Navigation Service Providers are working on Constant Descent Approaches (CDAs) but to do these it is necessary to have well motivated pilots, good operating procedures and efficient ATM procedures.… Continue reading Aircraft Operational Fuel Savings & Noise Reduction – Past and Future
NCS – What? Not CNS?!
Whoever came up with the abbreviation CNS (a.k.a. Communications/Navigation/Surveillance) probably had no idea how much damage their invention would cause in air traffic management by perpetuating the kind of silo mentality that keeps many organizations hopelessly divided and experts retreating into their respective ivory towers. If at least the inventors had the good sense of… Continue reading NCS – What? Not CNS?!
Italian holiday
I hope that after the last three Fridays when I dished up a poem in “The lighter side” have not made you decide not to read the blog on Fridays… I really hope so because it is once again Friday and I have yet another poem for you… As befits its category, these poems are… Continue reading Italian holiday
Near-miss on demand
In the late 70’s our authority decided to commission a series of training movies for air traffic controllers and engineers. The purpose was to show some of the most commonly occurring errors, give an analysis of the causes and provide some guidance on how to avoid them. I was selected to write the script for… Continue reading Near-miss on demand
Successful "Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Workshop" in Budapest
Although the concept of Performance Based Navigation (PBN) is generally known, when it comes to filling in the details, there is a lot of uncertainty, misunderstandings and even diverging views on what exactly should we understand under PBN. Big organizations like ICAO and EUROCONTROL are doing their best to clarify things but clearly, more is… Continue reading Successful "Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Workshop" in Budapest
Nudge – Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
By Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein Publisher: Yale University Press ISBN-978-o0300-12223-7 I am not a particular fan of books on healthy living or self-improvement. Having given up, without outside help, smoking a pipe after more than 35 years was enough to convince me that I had no use for such books… I have… Continue reading Nudge – Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
GDP and the Key Performance Indicators of air traffic management
Time magazine in their 2 November issue published a very interesting essay. The author, Steven Faris, argues that using GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to judge how well a country was doing is wrong and misleading. The idea behind GDP was only to show how much money is changing hands, nothing more, nothing less. Should we… Continue reading GDP and the Key Performance Indicators of air traffic management
Military Interception Signalling
News from EUROCONTROL’s aviation safety knowledge base SKYbrary You may have read that the Northwest flight that sailed past its destination recently and was out of communications with ATC for quite a long time was about to be intercepted by fighters… In the distant past, such interceptions were fairly rare except in the communist parts… Continue reading Military Interception Signalling
Flying with the Seagulls – Formation flying at EHHO
Earlier this year I received an invitation to join Jimmy De Koning – an Air Traffic Controller at the Maastricht Upper Area Control Center – to visit his flying club, Seagull Formation and see what makes it so unique. Seagull Formation, based at Hoogeveen airport in the northeast of the Netherlands, was founded in… Continue reading Flying with the Seagulls – Formation flying at EHHO