Posts about stuff relating to airports
What is the Best Airport Movie?
There are heaps of aviation movies, but very few are about or set primarily in an airport. In fact, I can only think of three. So what am I missing, and which one is the best?
Global Reporting Format: Further Viewing
As you can imagine, our discussion so far has leaned towards the airport side of the GRF story. So, for today, I thought I would share a couple of videos that discuss the GRF from a pilot’s point of view.
Winter Wonderland? Hardly...
Compared to the Arctic Blast that ripped through North America a couple of weeks ago, my experience with airport winter operations has been fairly limited. And while a little snow and ice can be treacherous, the amount of frozen water that was dumped over there was downright deadly.
Non-Strike Wildlife Events: Just as Important as a Strike?
Eagle-eyed* readers may have noticed the new menu item at the top. This new page outlines my PhD research project which is looking into wildlife strike reporting practices and standards. By pure coincidence, a couple of my favourite Youtube channels have just featured wildlife-related aviation events that did not involve collisions with birds. These types of events go to heart of my motivation for taking on my particular research question.
Header image: Janiere Fernandez (via Pexels)
Expanding Safety Performance Indicators for Wildlife Hazard Management
Recently, I was invited to speak “at” an airport safety conference on the topic of birds and habitat management. The presentation I delivered was an extension of a previous article I wrote about safety performance indicators with a twist towards wildlife hazard management in particular. The conference organisers have now shared the videos of their program for free but I’ve got the bit with me included here.
Image credit: Christina Morillo (via Pexels)
COVID-19 Bird Strike Update #4
For quite a while now, I’ve been tracking the impact of the COVID-19 air traffic downturn on wildlife strike rates. Early warnings highlighted the potential for and early indications were that there was a risk of increased wildlife strike rates while the industry returned to the skies. Since then, a lot more research has been done and presented. I presented my full year 2020 findings at the Australian Aviation Wildlife Hazard Group’s (AAWHG) 2021 Webinar Series last October with the video going online last week.
Check it out here…
Header image: Asad Photo Maldives (via Pexels)
ASW #5: Some Friday Funnies
It’s Friday, it’s Friday! The theme for day 5 is “Wellbeing”. The old Oxford Dictionary defines that as “the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy” and today, I’m going to try to help out with that last one with some funny aviation-themed videos from YouTube.
Visualising Jet Blast
Sometimes circumstances align to create a video that gives a perfect opportunity to see something that is usually not visible. In this case, it was a good dusting of dry snow, an aircraft parking in the right spot near a guy in the terminal also in the right spot at the right time.
Video: Taxiway Collision in Turkey
A long, long time ago, I almost jokingly suggested that we should be looking at Taxiway Safety as much as Runway Safety. But in the nearly seven years since I posted it, I've seen a steady stream of taxiway collisions across the world. The latest in Turkey provided some spectacular visuals and luckily no one was hurt.
Image credit: pixabay
Air Canada Taxiway Overfly: Investigating Incidents
In almost a teaser to a post I have coming out on Monday, the NTSB has just released all the factual information it has collected in its investigation of an incident that occurred last year at San Fransisco involving an Air Canada A320. As you can see from the video that they released yesterday, this was a very close call. Even though there were no injuries or deaths or damage, it represents a great opportunity for examination and learning. Unfortunately, my post on Monday discusses a couple of missed opportunities.
Image by Brian Bukowski
Wildlife Hazard Training with a Difference
Airport wildlife risk management has been a big topic for me over the past 6-12 months. I've posted on the subject a bit here and over on New Airport Insider. But today, I'm going to talk about it in a different context.
Someone is always watching...
Airports are at the nexus of high visibility and idle time. We invite people to transit through our facilities. We provide windows for them to watch the action. We make them wait (hopefully not too long).
Header image: Oleg Magni (via Pexels)
Airport Heavy Metal
For those engineers, works supervisors and general road-works warriors out there, here is a cool new video of trucks, asphalt, men and some more trucks as they overlay one of Melbourne Airport's runways. Enjoy :).
FODtube.com*
Last week's post on Foreign Object Debris got me surfing youtube.com for some videos: First up is a short video on some of Denver Airport's FOD control activities - pretty low tech stuff but they appear happy with it.
Guyana & Runway Safety
This week's news of a runway excursion in the South American country of Guyana got me thinking of the current focus on runway safety. So, I turned my mind to writing something on the subject. Unfortunately, I turned too slowly and Andy Pasztor at the Wall Street Journal beat me to it! Thats what I get for having a day job :(.
Header image: Jonathan Borba (via Pexels)
Unusual Wildlife Hazards Update
It appears that the reptilian conspiracy is real and it intends on shutting down the world's airports. First, it was geckos in the Australian outback and now its turtles in New York!
Image credit: David Dibert (via Pexels)
Spending time with our ATC cousins
i only occasionally get to spend time with the ATC community but last week offered one of those chances. My co-facilitator in Jakarta was Tim Abberton, a very experienced "airservices" ATC'er and safety guru and at least half the course were members of the Indonesian DGCA's Directorate of Air Navigation. The combined course was an excellent opportunity for the airport and air navigation worlds to work together as well as compare and contrast their approaches to similar problems.
Header image: Media Design and Media Publishing (via Pixabay)
St. Barth's Airport
On the face of it, no Australian airport should ever have obstacle problems. I mean, look at the space we have! But of course, we have the odd hill and good ol' urban encroachment means that some airports are struggling with obstacle control. Nothing like St Barth's airport though...
Topic of the Month: Runway Safety
The stories surrounding runway safety (i.e. runway incursions, excursions etc.) have been coming out steadily in the lead up to and following the global runway safety symposium. The stats formed the call to action and the responses have included the technological, the educational, the multi-disciplinary and the collaborative.
Apron Rampage
This story, to me at least, falls well into the security sphere which I tend to consider somewhat separate from safety. The difference between the two would make for an interesting discussion (maybe one to revisit later) but I usually consider security to encompass events involving an agent from outside of the aviation system intent on causing harm to it or within it. Of course there are exceptions to aspects of my definition - for example the security threat may come from the inside and the issues surrounding such events may straddle the security/safety disciplines.