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Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career

The Ready For Takeoff podcast will help you transform your aviation passion into an aviation career. Every week we bring you instruction and interviews with top aviators in their field who reveal their flight path to an exciting career in the skies.
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Ready For Takeoff - Turn Your Aviation Passion Into A Career
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Now displaying: August, 2017
Aug 30, 2017

Christian “Boo” Boucousis was a fighter pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force for 10 years. He is now the CEO of Mode, an innovative property development group that is currently developing Australia’s tallest prefabricated hotel in the Perth CBD.

Boo’s story is a real world example of how fighter pilots use the skills developed during their military careers to succeed in business.

Diagnosed with a serious medical condition, Boo could no longer fly fighter aircraft and so he decided to take the plunge into business. Using the skills and knowledge he acquired in the Air Force, he co-founded a successful humanitarian support company in the Middle East growing it to over 1,500 staff. Boo then sold that business and moved back to Australia to focus on developing affordable building methods, which was the genesis of Mode.

Boo attributes his success in business to the values and discipline he learned in the Air Force – focus, efficiency, continuous improvement and simplicity. And because of this experience, Boo fundamentally believes that the simple methodology used by fighter pilots (which Afterburner calls FLEX), can accelerate the performance of any business or organization.

Aug 26, 2017

ADS-B enables increased capacity and efficiency by supporting:

  • Better ATC traffic flow management
  • Merging and spacing
  • Self-separation or station keeping
  • Enhanced visual approaches;
  • Closely spaced parallel approaches;
  • Reduced spacing on final approach;
  • Reduced aircraft separations;
  • Enhanced operations in high altitude airspace for the incremental evolution of the "free flight" concept;
  • Surface operations in lower visibility conditions;
  • Near visual meteorological conditions (VMC) capacities throughout the airspace in most weather conditions;
  • Improved air traffic control services in non-radar airspace;
  • Trajectory-based operations providing a gently ascending and descending gradient with no step-downs or holding patterns needed. This will produce optimal trajectories with each aircraft becoming one node within a system wide information management network connecting all equipped parties in the air and on the ground. With all parties equipped with NextGen equipage, benefits will include reduced gate-to-gate travel times, increased runway utilization capacity, and increased efficiency with carbon conservation.
  • Use of ADS-B and CDTI may allow decreased approach spacing at certain airports to improve capacity during reduced-visibility operations when visual approach operations would normally be terminated (e.g., ceilings less than MVA +500).
Aug 24, 2017

This episode features more great advice from our previous guests.

Aug 19, 2017

Controller Pilot Data Link Communications (CPDLC) is a protocol for pilots and controllers to communicate with each other via digital means. Think of it as pilots and controllers communicating via email.

The standard method of communication between an air traffic controller and a pilot is voice radio, using either VHF bands for line-of-sight communication or HF bands for long-distance communication (such as that provided by Shanwick Oceanic Control).

One of the major problems with voice radio communications used in this manner is that all pilots being handled by a particular controller are tuned to the same frequency. As the number of flights air traffic controllers must handle is steadily increasing (for instance, Shanwick handled 414,570 flights in 2007, an increase of 5% - or 22,000 flights - from 2006, the number of pilots tuned to a particular station also increases. This increases the chances that one pilot will accidentally override another, thus requiring the transmission to be repeated. In addition, each exchange between a controller and pilot requires a certain amount of time to complete; eventually, as the number of flights being controlled reaches a saturation point, the controller will not be able to handle any further aircraft.

The CPDLC application provides air-ground data communication for the ATC service. This includes a set of clearance/information/request message elements which correspond to voice phraseology employed by air traffic control procedures. The controller is provided with the capability to issue level assignments, crossing constraints, lateral deviations, route changes and clearances, speed assignments, radio frequency assignments, and various requests for information. The pilot is provided with the capability to respond to messages, to request clearances and information, to report information, and to declare/rescind an emergency.

The sequence of messages between the controller and a pilot relating to a particular transaction (for example request and receipt of a clearance) is termed a ‘dialogue’. There can be several sequences of messages in the dialogue, each of which is closed by means of appropriate messages, usually of acknowledgement or acceptance. Closure of the dialogue does not necessarily terminate the link, since there can be several dialogues between controller and pilot while an aircraft transits the air traffic service unit (ATSU) airspace.

https://youtu.be/PweVyYqleF8

 

Aug 14, 2017

In prior Ready For Takeoff podcasts our guests have shared their advice for new pilots just starting out their flying training. In this episode we've assembled a cross-section of their thoughts.

Aug 11, 2017

This information is for training and informational purposes only. Wake turbulence is generated whenever an airplane is developing lift. The heavier and slower the airplane, the greater the wake turbulence. Your key to avoiding wake turbulence is to always fly through undisturbed air.

A Bombardier CL604 Challenger suffered catastrophic damage at FL 340 from the wake of an Airbus A380 flying at FL 350. The report is very sobering.

Aug 7, 2017

Todd Curtis served as a Flight Test Engineer in the Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base prior to launching the web site AirSafe.com in 1996, capitalizing on his Bachelor's Degree (Electrical Engineering), Master's Degrees (Electrical Engineering and Business) and Doctorate (Aviation Risk Asseessment). The site consistently ranks as a top three or first page result for Google searches for airline safety, fear of flying, carry-on baggage, and numerous other airline safety and security terms. The web site has also been cited frequently by major newspapers such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington post. The site and related online properties continue to provide the public with a diverse source of airline safety and security information.

He has worked at Boeing and is a frequent guest on television news shows as an aviation expert.

Aug 4, 2017

Modern jetliners have an environmental control system (ECS) that manages the flow of cabin air. Outside air enters the engines and is compressed in the forward section, prior to the combustion section, ensuring no combustion products can enter the cabin. A portion of that compressed bleed air is used to pressurize the cabin. The ECS then recirculates some of that cabin air through HEPA filters, while the rest is directed to outflow valves, ensuring there is a constant supply of fresh, clean air coming into the cabin pressurization system at all times.

It is possible for contaminants to enter the cabin through the air-supply system and through other means. Substances used in the maintenance and treatment of aircraft, including aviation engine oil, hydraulic fluid, cleaning compounds and de-icing fluids, can contaminate the ECS. While ground and flight crews, as well as passengers themselves can be sources of contaminants such as pesticides, bioeffluents, viruses, bacteria, allergens, and fungal spores.

Possible sources of poor-quality cabin air include exposures related to normal operations of the aircraft:

  • Ozone (O3)
  • Carbon dioxide (passengers exhaling CO2)
  • Carbon monoxide (CO - Jet exhaust fumes, Ambient airport air)
  • Temperature
  • Relative humidity
  • Off-gassing from interior material and cleaning agents
  • Bioeffluents
  • Personal-care products
  • Allergens
  • Infectious or inflammatory agents
  • Cabin pressure/partial pressure of oxygen
  • Alcohol
  • Formaldehyde
  • Deicing fluid.
  • Particulate Matter (Including dust which contains microbes).
  • Dry ice used to keep food cold.
  • Toilet fluid, leaked or spilled.
  • Rain repellent fluid.
  • Pyrethroid Pesticides
  • Pre-existing illness—such as anemia, asthma, COPD, and coronary arterial disease—the stresses of flight could exacerbate symptoms.
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