Alameda ERAU-W Blog

 We all have seen them, that big tower that stands high above any airport/airfield. The reason its that tall is so the ATC (Air Traffic Control) personnel can see any aircraft either coming in or taking off. The world's tallest ATC tower is 493 feet tall and located in Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Thailand. These towers hold all of the equipment necessary for controllers to guide aircraft in and out of the airport. One of these tools is the radar, this tool allows controllers to see where aircraft are, their altitude, their distance, and their direction of travel. Towers Controllers can have all of the tools, radars, radios, etc. to help guide aircraft, but without being in an elevated position, the controllers might not be able to see where the aircraft is physical. This would make the job 10 times more stressful than it already is and the pilots won't be able to see where the controllers are in the event they need verification of saying their landing gear is deploye...

 It's as obvious as orange juice is the color orange (thanks CPT. Obvious), aircraft make a ton of noise, and when a large number of aircraft are at one airport in operation at once, that noise becomes louder and disrupt the local communities in the area. Noise presents a great risk to airport managers and must be mitigated, or face fines and or airport closures. What is noise? Noise, defined by Merriam-Webster, is  any sound that is undesired or interferes with one's hearing of something (Marriam-Webster, 2020) . How does airport noise affect local communities? High levels of noise can affect an individuals' hearing and prolonged exposure to high noise level can lead to hearing damage and even hearing loss. Airport noise can also interfere with the daily activities of local communities. According to the European Commission, airport noise pollution can increase blood pressure, your chance of a stroke, and your chances of coronary heart disease. High noise levels can also ...

  WHAT IS THE FEDERAL AVIAITON ACT OF 1958? The Federal Aviation Act of 1958 created the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This act also gave sole responsibility for the nation's non-military air navigation and air traffic control. any regulation regarding aviation in the united states is called a Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR). This was an act of congress which created the Federal Aviation Agency (now known as the FAA) and abolished the administration before it, the Civil Aviation Administration (CAA). This act empowered the FAA to oversee and regulate safety in the aviation industry and the use of airspace by both civilian and military aircraft.  HOW DID IT START? The Federal Aviation Act was born out if the wreckage of two mid air collisions. One happened on July 30, 1956 when United Airlines flight 718 collided with TWA flight 2 over the grand canyon, resulting in 128 fatalities. This was the largest amount of fatalities in any aviation accident at the time. The ot...

                 Communication in aircraft maintenance is extremely important in the completion in of any aircraft maintenance. it is so important that it could mean the difference between staying at work until 2200 (10:00 pm) on a Friday night, keeping other components of the aircraft from breaking, keeping the new parts from breaking before they even get on the aircraft, and going home with all of your fingers or going home in a body bag, and even the pilots coming back from a successful test flight or crashing. I cannot stress enough how IMPORTANT this is when conducting maintenance. According to the FAA, 80 percent of maintenance errors involve human factors (AMT Handbook), some of which involve simply not communicating, or at the very least telling the next guy what you have done so far.                    As a maintainer, you must tell someone when you've...

 This week for aviation security I choose the threat of terrorism for my discussion. After 9/11 we learned that we needed better security measures within our airports. As technology progresses, new building methods and materials for weapons and bomb manufacturing are developed, it has become easier for a terrorist to sneak a weapon and or bomb onto an aircraft to do harm to others. of the 20 layers of aviation security used by TSA, the most effective ones for preventing terrorism would be checked baggage checkpoints, and law enforcement officers.  My first choice was checked baggage since it is the first place you go when checking in for your flight, its the first line of defense in preventing a terrorist attack. Bags are checked with x-rays and by hand by TSA personnel. When your bag is checked under x-ray and the TSA officers spot something suspicious, they will open your bag and search you whatever that item is. Have you ever noticed that when you open your checked bag afte...

    The hydraulic system on an aircraft (that has one, some aircraft such as the OH-6 do not have a hydraulic system) provides flight control, breaking, landing gear deployment/retraction, breaking, and starting on some aircraft such as the AH-64 with its hydraulically operated starters for both APU and main engines. The hydraulic system of an aircraft is one of the most important systems on any aircraft equipped with it. Without this system and a failure in any back up systems can spell disaster for anyone on board. According to chapter 7 of the Pilots Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, A basic hydraulic system consists of a reservoir, pump (either hand, electric, or engine-driven), a filter to keep the fluid clean, a selector valve to control the direction of flow, a relief valve to relieve excess pressure, and an actuator (PHAK, 2020).     The list of potential failures in a hydraulic system can go on and on but in my experience with hydraulic systems, the m...