A taxiway will do, take 2 – Aeroflot Airbus takes off from taxiway in Oslo

EUROCONTROL’s Preventing Runway Incursions Portal has a quiz designed to test the knowledge of pilots, air traffic controllers and vehicle drivers about, among others, the runway and taxiway environment. One of the questions shows a concrete surface with white markings in a limited visibility environment, seen from the cockpit window. The question: are we on a… Continue reading A taxiway will do, take 2 – Aeroflot Airbus takes off from taxiway in Oslo

Beyond the runway end safety area

News from EUROCONTROL’s aviation safety knowledge base SKYbrary The consequences of many runway excursions, especially overruns, are made much more serious because the aircraft end up beyond the actual or nominal confines of the ICAO-defined Runway End Safety Area (RESA) and is catastrophically damaged because of major obstructions or terrain changes encountered soon after this… Continue reading Beyond the runway end safety area

Runway incursion prevention – know your hot spots

News from EUROCONTROL’S aviation safety knowledge base SKYbrary It is well known to pilots and air traffic controllers alike that some parts of the runway/taxiway complex at aerodromes seem to attract incidents. As if they were jinxed in some way, mistakes are made regularly at these singularities of the airport universe. On roads internationally standardized… Continue reading Runway incursion prevention – know your hot spots

Wake turbulence gone with the wind – the CREDOS project

The problem of vortices There are two kinds of dangerous phenomena behind large aircraft. Jet wash and wingtip vortices. These are the most important components of what is commonly referred to as “wake turbulence”. The intensity of this turbulence depends on a number of factors, among them the mass of the aircraft concerned. Jet-wash is… Continue reading Wake turbulence gone with the wind – the CREDOS project

Videos that show the impossible

  The company bringing you Roger-Wilco, BluSky Services is also well known for its multimedia and video products as well as its web design prowess. Some of our videos were created for clients who wanted to show the impossible. Like runway incursions as they were happening. Using cutting edge technology, we have recreated a number… Continue reading Videos that show the impossible

Visiting an office with a view

Familiarization flight with Transavia One of the countless drawbacks of 9/11, a few of you may have realized, is that even for air traffic controllers it has become increasingly difficult to visit a cockpit of an airliner, indeed most of the airlines adopted a closed cockpit door policy. I used to take every opportunity to… Continue reading Visiting an office with a view

Same time, same place, same level… 8.

View from the tower There can be little doubt that an airport looks its best from the control tower. True, pilots may lay claim to this, insisting that nothing equals the view from the front office window of an airplane in the final stages of its approach, but for earthbound controllers, the tower is absolute… Continue reading Same time, same place, same level… 8.

Runway incursions – a portal full of help

Flying is several orders of magnitude safer than road travel, we all know that. Yet there is a curious element of commonality between those two modes of transport, representing a serious danger in both. Drivers who manage to get onto the wrong side of a motorway and aircraft or ground vehicles that blunder onto the… Continue reading Runway incursions – a portal full of help