ERAU

     One of the biggest threats I see manifesting in current day aviation is “insider threats”. Who am I labeling when I say this? I am talking about any employee in the aviation industry, (gate keeper, terminal lead, bag sorter, airline mechanics, vendors, third party contactors, cleaning crews, etc.) that have access to classified or sensitive information, people with access to restricted or classified areas. Some of these employees are careless with this information or misuse information for the purpose of negative exploitation of companies or the entirety of the aviation industry. This absolutely includes theft and damage of physical property as well.        Just from my understanding on how these threats come to be, I believe some of the biggest factors on how these insider threats manifest themselves are the firing, furlough or complacency of individuals within their given role. With covid shifting the way we conduct business on all levels, the aviation industry is no stranger

The system I am choosing to write about is autopilot (or the automated flight control system that allows for automatic control of aircraft pitch, yaw and roll move ments while in level flight or while on a set course). Autopilot can greatly assist a pilot in reducing workload to help them focus on other flight duties as well as in increasing SA (situational awareness).   When the autopilot system has failed there will be an indication in the cockpit to the CAS (crew alerting system) which monitors hundreds of aircraft systems at a given time. Autopilot also has a disengagement that can be operated automatically or manually.    Some of the common failures of the autopilot system are electrical power failures, internal failure of the autopilot system and altitude and heading references system failures as well as servo failure.    Some of the impacts of autopilot systems failures have been felt across the aviation industry with a few of the more widely known cases and investigations bein

Icy flight conditions      Not all weather makes for ideal flying conditions especially icy flying conditions. Planes are critically balanced, and are designed and built to cut through the air like hot butter to a knife. One of the most troublesome environmental factors to flight is icy atmospheric conditions and ice accumulation on an aircraft.      The specific shape of the airfoil is designed to create a lower pressure area above the wing and a higher pressure area below the wing to generate lift. When ice accumulates on the airfoil, it creates a disruption in the flow of air and makes the plane both harder to control for the pilots and more unstable in the air. When pilots encounter accumulation of ice it is typical to increase airspeed and an increased angle of attack for compensation of drag and to maintain altitude. This additionally causes problems because it allows for ice to accumulate the underside of airfoils and the fuselage of the plane. Once ice accumulates on every fron