It was in summer of 1971 when I started training for air traffic control at the Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) Air Academy in Manila, Philippines. Actually, it was only the fourth time since 1957 that they accepted women in ATC training classes, the last one being in 1963. All those years, only 11 women graduated… Continue reading The story of Alpha Mike
Tag: ATC
The long and winding road – women in the cockpit and the control tower
To-day, nobody bats an eye at the sight of a four-striper with long blond hair and lipstick hauling her flight case like her male colleagues do. Even an all female crew in the front office is commonplace these days. A female voice on the control frequency is also quite normal now in most of the… Continue reading The long and winding road – women in the cockpit and the control tower
ATC Global 2011 – Amsterdam RAI, 8-10 March 2011
Although ATC Global claims to eclipse all other industry events, this yearly jamboree of the ATC “industry” is not judged equally useful by those involved. Through clever marketing and a bit of luck, ATC Global has grown into an event which many feel must be attended (or rather, they feel you cannot afford not to… Continue reading ATC Global 2011 – Amsterdam RAI, 8-10 March 2011
ATSB Preliminary Report on Qantas Flight 32
On the 3rd December the ATSB issued its preliminary report on the uncontained engine failure suffered by the Qantas A380 on the 4th November. The initial cause appears to have been a fatigue crack within a stub pipe that feeds oil to the HP/IP bearing structure. And this cracking was associated with a misaligned region of… Continue reading ATSB Preliminary Report on Qantas Flight 32
WorldFlight: driving virtual airspace to the max
On a sunny, crisp Sunday morning in Melbourne, Australia in the late 1990s, Matt Sheil raised the gear of his light twin and called Departure. With little traffic, he received clearance direct Sydney, his home town. Matt pointed the nose to the North-East, engaged the autopilot, and looked where he had put his newspaper. Ten… Continue reading WorldFlight: driving virtual airspace to the max
Visual illusions – check this out and you will never believe your eyes again
We often say on seeing something surprising “I could hardly believe my eyes”. Of course we know from countless little tricks from childhood onwards that our eyes, those vitally important sensors of visual information, are far from infallible. Of course it is no so much the sensors, our eyes themselves, that are at fault. They… Continue reading Visual illusions – check this out and you will never believe your eyes again
Air-ground voice communications – the vital and often weakest link. New guide from EUROCONTROL for GA pilots
It is a curious fact of life in air traffic management that it is impossible to do ATC without proper communications yet the air-ground voice communications system as we know it to-day is both a hindrance to increasing capacity and a potential source of serious incidents. The former is due to the fact that a… Continue reading Air-ground voice communications – the vital and often weakest link. New guide from EUROCONTROL for GA pilots
Use of selected altitude by ATC
News from EUROCONTROL’s aviation safety knowledge base SKYbrary. The ability of a controller to see the selected altitude set by the flight crew gives him the ability to intervene when, for whatever reason, the selected altitude does not match the clearance. This greatly reduces the chance of a level bust. Read the full article here.
Are ATM operational concepts the cause of failure?
I have known Jean-Marc Garot, the former director of EUROCONTROL’s Experimental Centre in Paris for a long time. A forward thinker and in many ways a visionary, he retired from EUROCONTROL in 2005. He has now published an interesting article in The Controller magazine with the title “What is an ATM concept?” I think everyone… Continue reading Are ATM operational concepts the cause of failure?
European ATM – Is there anything really new under the Sun?
Back in March, Daniel Calleja, Director of the European Commission’s Air Transport Directorate, informed his audience at the ATC Global conference in Amsterdam, that “…despite six years’ effort, Europe has yet to achieve its objective of creating a Single European Sky (SES).” Six years indeed… make that thirteen Mr. Calleja. Thankfully I do not attend… Continue reading European ATM – Is there anything really new under the Sun?