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      • Travel & Transport

        A Brief History of Transport (Series)

        Trains

        by David West and Oliver West

        Have you ever wondered about the Golden Age of aviation? Or how we built railroads across continents? Have you wondered how we moved from steam trains to high-speed electric trains? Or how feats in engineering allowed us to create a supersonic plane that travelled faster than the speed of sound?   If so, allow your readers to delve into our brilliant 4-title series - Cars, Planes, Trains and Ships - to learn about the dynamic history of how technology and innovation have changed the way that we travel.

      • Biography & True Stories
        October 2013

        Going Solo on Lake Como

        by Ciara O'Toole

        Sometimes flying by the seat of your pants is the best thing you can do … When Ciara O’Toole and her husband move to Lake Como, Italy, they make plans – to run their own businesses, to learn the language and to immerse themselves in the Italian way of life. But just a few months into the adventure Ciara’s marriage ends and she finds herself alone in a country where she doesn’t speak the language. She is faced with a choice: return to Ireland or stay in Italy and make her new life work. Determined to make a go of it, she throws herself into everything – forging new friendships – whirlwind romances, attempting to eat her own weight in four-cheese pizzas … and learning to fly a seaplane! Her new passion grips her as she works tirelessly towards an all-important milestone: her first solo flight. Told with warmth, humour and disarming honesty, Going Solo on Lake Como is the inspirational story of how one woman finds her wings and takes to the skies. ‘It made me laugh, it made me cry. It is epic in scope but incredibly intimate.’ Jane Maas

      • General & world history

        Dust Clouds in the Middle East

        The Air War for East Africa, Iraq, Syria, Iran and Madagascar, 1940-42

        by Christopher Shores

        Originally appearing as a series of magazine articles, the valuable research into air operations, over the old-style Middle East of World War II, here appears in book form.;It deals with a variety of engagements between Britain and her Commonwealth forces and the Germans, Italians and Vichy French across many borders and differing terrains. It covers from the Italian threat and Ababa, the air battles over Lebanon, the breaking of Vichy air strength and culminates in the occupation of Madagascar in 1942.

      • Aircraft: general interest
        April 1999

        The Practicality of Pulsed Fast Neutron Transmission Spectroscopy for Aviation Security

        by Panel on Assessment of the Practicality of Pulsed Fast Neutron Transmission Spectroscopy for Aviation Security, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council

        A major goal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and now the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is the development of technologies for detecting explosives and illegal drugs in freight cargo and passenger luggage. One such technology is pulsed fast neutron analysis (PFNA). This technology is based on detection of signature radiation (gamma rays) induced in material scanned by a beam of neutrons. While PFNA may have the potential to meet TSA goals, it has many limitations. Because of these issues, the government asked the National Research Council to evaluate the potential of PFNA for airport use and compare it with current and future x-ray technology. The results of this survey are presented in "Assessment of the Practicality of Pulsed Fast Neutron Analysis for Aviation Security.†A broad range of detection methods and test results are covered in this report. Tests conducted as of October 2000 showed that the PFNA system was unable to meet the stringent federal aviation requirements for explosive detection in air cargo containers. PFNA systems did, however, demonstrate some superior characteristics compared to existing x-ray systems in detecting explosives in cargo containers, though neither system performed entirely satisfactorily. Substantial improvements are needed in the PFNA detection algorithms to allow it to meet aviation detection standards for explosives in cargo and passenger baggage. The PFNA system currently requires a long scan time (an average of 90 minutes per container in the prototype testing in October 2000), needs considerable radiation shielding, is significantly larger than current x-ray systems, and has high implementation costs. These factors are likely to limit installation at airports, even if the detection capability is improved. Nevertheless, because PFNA has the best potential of any known technology for detecting explosives in cargo and luggage, this book discusses how continued research to improve detection capabilities and system design can best be applied for the airport environment.

      • Aircraft: general interest
        November 2003

        Securing the Future of U.S. Air Transportation

        A System in Peril

        by Committee on Aeronautics Research and Technology for Vision 2050, Studies and Information Services, National Research Council

        As recently as the summer of 2001, many travelers were dreading air transportation because of extensive delays associated with undercapacity of the system. That all changed on 9/11, and demand for air transportation has not yet returned to peak levels. Most U.S. airlines continue to struggle for survival, and some have filed for bankruptcy. The situation makes it difficult to argue that strong action is urgently needed to avert a crisis of undercapacity in the air transportation system. This report assesses the visions and goals for U.S. civil aviation and technology goals for the year 2050.

      • Aircraft: general interest
        July 2013

        Assessment of Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation

        by Committee on Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation; Board on Human-Systems Integration; Division on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; National Research Council

        Within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the Airway Transportation System Specialists ATSS) maintain and certify the equipment in the National Airspace System (NAS).In fiscal year 2012, Technical Operations had a budget of $1.7B. Thus, Technical Operations includes approximately 19 percent of the total FAA employees and less than 12 percent of the $15.9 billion total FAA budget. Technical Operations comprises ATSS workers at five different types of Air Traffic Control (ATC) facilities: (1) Air Route Traffic Control Centers, also known as En Route Centers, track aircraft once they travel beyond the terminal airspace and reach cruising altitude; they include Service Operations Centers that coordinate work and monitor equipment. (2) Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facilities control air traffic as aircraft ascend from and descend to airports, generally covering a radius of about 40 miles around the primary airport; a TRACON facility also includes a Service Operations Center. (3) Core Airports, also called Operational Evolution Partnership airports, are the nation's busiest airports. (4) The General National Airspace System (GNAS) includes the facilities located outside the larger airport locations, including rural airports and equipment not based at any airport. (5) Operations Control Centers are the facilities that coordinate maintenance work and monitor equipment for a Service Area in the United States. At each facility, the ATSS execute both tasks that are scheduled and predictable and tasks that are stochastic and unpredictable in. These tasks are common across the five ATSS disciplines: (1) Communications, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers and pilots to be in contact throughout the flight; (2) Surveillance and Radar, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers to see the specific locations of all the aircraft in the airspace they are monitoring; (3) Automation, maintaining the systems that allow air traffic controllers to track each aircraft's current and future position, speed, and altitude; (4) Navigation, maintaining the systems that allow pilots to take off, maintain their course, approach, and land their aircraft; and (5) Environmental, maintaining the power, lighting, and heating/air conditioning systems at the ATC facilities. Because the NAS needs to be available and reliable all the time, each of the different equipment systems includes redundancy so an outage can be fixed without disrupting the NAS. Assessment of Staffing Needs of Systems Specialists in Aviation reviews the available information on: (A) the duties of employees in job series 2101 (Airways Transportation Systems Specialist) in the Technical Operations service unit; (B) the Professional Aviation Safety Specialists (PASS) union of the AFL-CIO; (C) the present-day staffing models employed by the FAA; (D) any materials already produced by the FAA including a recent gap analysis on staffing requirements; (E) current research on best staffing models for safety; and (F) non-US staffing standards for employees in similar roles.

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