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Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airspace. The primary purpose of ATC worldwide is to prevent collisions, organize and expedite the flow of air traffic, and provide information and other support for pilots. In some countries, ATC plays a security or defensive role, or is operated by the military.
A controlled flight into terrain is an accident in which an airworthy aircraft, under pilot control, is unintentionally flown into the ground, a mountain, a body of water or an obstacle. In a typical CFIT scenario, the crew is unaware of the impending disaster until it is too late. The term was coined by engineers at Boeing in the late 1970s.
On the night of 1 July 2002, Bashkirian Airlines Flight 2937, a Tupolev Tu-154 passenger jet, and DHL Flight 611, a Boeing 757 cargo jet, collided in mid-air over Überlingen, a southern German town on Lake Constance, near the Swiss border. All 69 passengers and crew aboard the Tupolev and both crew members of the Boeing were killed.
Wake turbulence is a disturbance in the atmosphere that forms behind an aircraft as it passes through the air. It includes various components, the most important of which are wingtip vortices and jetwash. Jetwash refers simply to the rapidly moving gases expelled from a jet engine; it is extremely turbulent, but of short duration. Wingtip vortices, on the other hand, are much more stable and can remain in the air for up to three minutes after the passage of an aircraft. It is therefore not true turbulence in the aerodynamic sense, as true turbulence would be chaotic. Instead, it refers to the similarity to atmospheric turbulence as experienced by an aircraft flying through this region of disturbed air.
A traffic collision avoidance system or traffic alert and collision avoidance system is an aircraft collision avoidance system designed to reduce the incidence of mid-air collisions between aircraft. It monitors the airspace around an aircraft for other aircraft equipped with a corresponding active transponder, independent of air traffic control, and warns pilots of the presence of other transponder-equipped aircraft which may present a threat of mid-air collision (MAC). It is a type of airborne collision avoidance system mandated by the International Civil Aviation Organization to be fitted to all aircraft with a maximum take-off mass (MTOM) of over 5,700 kg (12,600 lb) or authorized to carry more than 19 passengers. CFR 14, Ch I, part 135 requires that TCAS I be installed for aircraft with 10-30 passengers and TCAS II for aircraft with more than 30 passengers.
The European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, commonly known as EUROCONTROL, is an international organisation working to achieve safe and seamless air traffic management across Europe. Founded in 1960, EUROCONTROL currently has 41 member states and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It has several local sites as well, including R&D activities in Brétigny-sur-Orge, France, the Institute of Air Navigation Training (IANS) in Luxembourg, and the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) in Maastricht, the Netherlands. The organisation employs approximately two thousand people, and operates with an annual budget in excess of half a billion Euro.
Secondary surveillance radar (SSR) is a radar system used in air traffic control (ATC), that unlike primary radar systems that measure the bearing and distance of targets using the detected reflections of radio signals, relies on targets equipped with a radar transponder, that reply to each interrogation signal by transmitting encoded data such as an identity code, the aircraft's altitude and further information depending on its chosen mode. SSR is based on the military identification friend or foe (IFF) technology originally developed during World War II, therefore the two systems are still compatible. Monopulse secondary surveillance radar (MSSR), Mode S, TCAS and ADS-B are similar modern methods of secondary surveillance.
An airborne collision avoidance system operates independently of ground-based equipment and air traffic control in warning pilots of the presence of other aircraft that may present a threat of collision. If the risk of collision is imminent, the system initiates a maneuver that will reduce the risk of collision. ACAS standards and recommended practices are mainly defined in annex 10, volume IV, of the Convention on International Civil Aviation. Much of the technology being applied to both military and general aviation today has been undergoing development by NASA and other partners since the 1980s.
Area navigation is a method of instrument flight rules (IFR) navigation that allows an aircraft to choose any course within a network of navigation beacons, rather than navigate directly to and from the beacons. This can conserve flight distance, reduce congestion, and allow flights into airports without beacons. Area navigation used to be called "random navigation", hence the acronym RNAV.
Advanced Surface Movement Guidance and Control System is a system at airports having a surveillance infrastructure consisting of a Non-Cooperative Surveillance and Cooperative Surveillance. A-SMGCS has 4 levels, level 1 and 2 have been validated by EUROCONTROL Airport Operations and Environment division in Eurocontrol located in Brussels, Belgium and work is ongoing to verify requirements for further implementation levels in coordination with ICAO, FAA etc.
A terminal control area, also known as a terminal manoeuvring area (TMA) in Europe, is an aviation term to describe a designated area of controlled airspace surrounding a major airport where there is a high volume of traffic. TMA airspace is normally designed in a circular configuration centered on the geographic coordinates of the airport, and differs from a control area in that it includes several levels of increasingly larger areas, creating an "upside-down wedding cake" shape.
A mid-air collision is an aviation accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. Owing to the relatively high velocities involved and the likelihood of subsequent impact with the ground or sea, very severe damage or the total destruction of at least one of the aircraft usually results.
Controller–pilot data link communications (CPDLC), also referred to as controller pilot data link (CPDL), is a method by which air traffic controllers can communicate with pilots over a datalink system.
The aviation transponder interrogation modes are the standard formats of pulsed sequences from an interrogating Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) or similar Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. The reply format is usually referred to as a "code" from a transponder, which is used to determine detailed information from a suitably equipped aircraft.
SKYbrary is a wiki created by the European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation, International Civil Aviation Organization, and the Flight Safety Foundation to create a comprehensive source of aviation safety information freely available online. It was launched in May 2008 on a platform based on MediaWiki. The Flight Safety Foundation defines SKYbrary's goal as: capturing authoritative aviation industry information and create cumulative knowledge, especially with regard to critical safety issues. HindSight Magazine related to SKYbrary received the Cecil A. Brownlow Publication Award in 2009 at the FSF International Air Safety Seminar (IASS).
The TopSky system is a computerised air traffic control and management solution developed by Thales Air Systems. It utilises a distributed computing architecture and is capable of integrating geographically dispersed air traffic control units within a Flight Information Region into a single coherent system.
Minimum safe altitude warning (MSAW) is an automated warning system for air traffic controllers (ATCO). It is a ground-based safety net intended to warn the controller about increased risk of controlled flight into terrain accidents by generating, in a timely manner, an alert of aircraft proximity to terrain or obstacles.
Aircraft self-separation is the capability of an aircraft maintaining acceptably safe separation from other aircraft without following instructions or guidance from a referee agent for this purpose, such as air traffic control. In its simplest forms, it can be described by the concept of see and avoid, in the case of human-piloted aircraft, or sense and avoid, in the case of non-human piloted aircraft. However, because of several factors such as weather, instrument flight rules and air traffic complexity, the self-separation capability involves other elements and aspects such as rules of the air, communication technologies and protocols, air traffic management and others.
Aviation English is the de facto international language of civil aviation. With the expansion of air travel in the 20th century, there were safety concerns about the ability of pilots and air traffic controllers to communicate. In 1951, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) recommended in "ICAO Annex 10 ICAO to the International Chicago Convention" that English be universally used for "international aeronautical radiotelephony communications." Despite being a recommendation only, ICAO aviation English was widely accepted.
The English Language Proficiency for Aeronautical Communication (ELPAC) is a EUROCONTROL test for aeronautical communication designed to assess ICAO English Language Proficiency for pilots and air traffic controllers, and reflects the range of tasks undertaken in air traffic control and pilot communications. The test focuses on language proficiency, not operational procedures.
References
- ↑ EUROCONTROL (19 May 2009) [22 November 2007]. "Specification for Short Term Conflict Alert" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 June 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2010.
- ↑ Rules of the Air and Air Traffic Services. ICAO. Doc 4444-RAC/501.
- ↑ "Ground Based Safety Nets". Airport International. 12 April 2007. Archived from the original on 7 July 2011. Retrieved 22 May 2010.CS1 maint: unfit url (link)
- ↑ "Short Term Conflict Alert (STCA)" . Retrieved 22 May 2010– via SKYbrary.
- ↑ EUROCONTROL (November 2007). "ACAS II Bulletin No. 10" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 November 2009. Retrieved 23 July 2009.