Although aviation security is not a new phenomenon to the world, current threats are much more sophisticated such that it is extremely difficult to detect possible threats of terrorism without severely hindering passenger life style. In order to provide adequate security, a much more sophisticated, reliable, and fast screening technique is needed for passenger identification and baggage examina...

As we become increasing dependent on GPS for many position, navigation, and time (PNT) applications, it becomes increasing important that we have an alternate means of obtaining those capabilities. This is especially important in critical applications such as aviation. As part of the ongoing Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Loran evaluation, the system is being assessed for its ability pro...

• The Mode S data link is a high-capacity air-ground digital communications system that can deliver information to the cockpit in a form that will significantly improve pilot situational awareness and aircraft utility. The Federal Aviation Administration is currently deploying Mode S surveillance sensors with data-link capability at 143 sites across the United States. Two Mode S data-link appli...

In aviation, it is common to have several aircraft operating in similar conditions uneventfully, yet another aircraft, following suit, experiences an accident in the same conditions. With the same information available to crews of both aircraft, conditions can quickly change leading to an accident for one, while the other crews land safely. Should this situational ambiguity be the cause of the ...

The main challenges in predicting the weather are insufficient computational power and gaps in our understanding of the complex dynamics of atmospheric phenomena. There are comparatively straightforward solutions to these problems: enough teraflops, the right equations. But what happens when you have neither? This is the problem facing aviation turbulence forecasters, who are charged with the t...

The two official sources for aviation weather reports both provide weather information to a pilot in a textual format. A number of systems have recently become available to help pilots with the visualization task by providing much of the data graphically. However, two types of aviation weather data are still not being presented graphically. These are airport-specific current weather reports (kn...

The Future Aviation Safety Team (FAST) is a multidisciplinary international group of aviation professionals that was established to identify possible future aviation safety hazards. The principle was adopted that future hazards are undesirable consequences of changes, and a primary activity of FAST became identification and prioritization of possible future changes affecting aviation. Since 200...