Although the concept of Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) originated in the US, Europe did leapfrog ahead with its initiative called Airport CDM (A-CDM). A-CDM has been implemented at a number of European airports with varying degrees of success and it seems that the momentum of implementation has slowed somewhat. On the other hand, most everybody… Continue reading Collaborative Departure Queue Management (CDQM) – What is this?
Category: Buzzwords explained
Articles explaining the new terms used in air traffic management
Alternate Position, Navigation and Timing (APNT) – What is this?
In any conversation about satellite navigation and the use of enablers like GPS, talk inevitably shifts to the risks and the ease with which GPS for instance can be jammed. It is easy to sketch doomsday scenarios with a full-scale GPS outage once NextGen and SESAR are operational, making the industry essentially dependent on signals… Continue reading Alternate Position, Navigation and Timing (APNT) – What is this?
Initial Tailored Arrivals – What is this?
We have all heard about Tailored Arrivals. But what are Initial Tailored Arrivals? The following article from the FAA explains it for us. An Initial Tailored Arrival (ITA) is a pre-negotiated arrival path through airspace of multiple air traffic control (ATC) facilities. The ITA limits vectoring and minimizes the time the aircraft spends maintaining level flight… Continue reading Initial Tailored Arrivals – What is this?
FAA AC 120-76B – DRAFT – Guidelines for the Certification, Airworthiness, and Operational Use of Electronic Flight Bags (EFB)
The FAA recently released for comment a draft Advisory Circular 120-76B, “Guidelines for the Certification, Airworthiness, and Operational Use of Electronic Flight Bags (EFB)”. This is the third revision of the AC 120-76 series and provides guidance for operational approval and installation of Electronic Flight Bags. While previous versions of this AC were applicable primarily… Continue reading FAA AC 120-76B – DRAFT – Guidelines for the Certification, Airworthiness, and Operational Use of Electronic Flight Bags (EFB)
The misunderstanding of the decade or sloppy terminology?
Buzzwords are powerful things. They can be dropped in speeches and writing almost at random and the casual audience or reader will be suitably impressed. Luckily they seldom bother to ask the author for an explanation of his favorite buzzwords… Our little air traffic management world of to-day has lots of buzzwords but my all… Continue reading The misunderstanding of the decade or sloppy terminology?
Transition altitude – the higher the better?
Altimetry primer Although I know full well that no pilot or air traffic controller needs a reminder of what Transition Altitude or Transition Level means, I will recap quickly for the benefit of those readers not directly concerned with aircraft altimetry. When we fly, we determine the vertical distance from the surface of the Earth… Continue reading Transition altitude – the higher the better?
From leather to electronic – the evolution of the flight bag
This article was written using in part material kindly provided by Mr. Dave Allen The gems in my collection Among my travel gear accumulated over the years, I have two items that are really iconic and which are both on the way out. They are two leather flight bags, one from Jeppesen in the traditional shape… Continue reading From leather to electronic – the evolution of the flight bag
Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective
Trajectory Based Operations (TBO) and Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) are two concepts rather new to air traffic management (ATM) and apparently they continue to cause some head scratching when it comes to agreeing what TBO really means or how to define services in the ATM context. In this article I will attempt to explain a… Continue reading Aircraft turnaround made visible from a TBO/SOA perspective
Do you really understand – Trajectory based operations (TBO)?
There is a misconception in some air traffic management circles that trajectory based operations is simply business as usual except that the current, notoriously imprecise ground generated trajectories are replaced by more accurate, 4 D trajectories and that is all there is to it. Some will add that parts of this 4D trajectory might be… Continue reading Do you really understand – Trajectory based operations (TBO)?
Paul the octopus
What is the connection between an octopus and flight plan adherence? Daily across Europe, regulations are put in place to protect ATC from receiving more traffic than the controller can handle safely. However, it regularly happens that more aircraft than planned enter these protected sectors, exceeding their capacities by more than 10%, which is regarded… Continue reading Paul the octopus