Airline Logo's
1: Modern Aircraft
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Modern aircraft enable passengers to wine, dine and even catch a good night's sleep without any worries over the plane's soaring altitude or the mechanical means that keep them there. When something goes wrong, however, you need to be able to exit the plane and live to tell the story on the ground.
As such, planes have boasted several ingenious escape features over the years. Let's walk through some of the ways you might try to exit an aircraft in an emergency.
The evacuation slide: No one wants to abandon an airplane before landing, so if it's possible, pilots attempt to regain control or at least achieve a crash landing. At this point, you generally want to flee as far from the damaged airplane as possible. This is where the evacuation slide comes in handy. Compressed gas inflates the slide, allowing for speedy deployment. A passenger then slides down and, in some cases, the inflatable slide can be used as a flotation device.
The parachute: The first parachute jump from an airplane took place in 1912, a mere nine years after the Wright brothers' inaugural flight. It has remained an aviation staple, creating drag to slow down a moving object, person or aircraft. You won't find a cache of emergency chutes on a commercial airliner, however, as they typically operate at speeds and altitudes that would require additional safety gear. Skydiving also calls for individual training and regular parachute maintenance -- to say nothing of the logistics involved in evacuating a plane full of passengers in such a manner.
The ejection seat: This option generally remains the exclusive domain of military and experimental aircraft. While it was possible for the pilots of older, prop-driven aircraft to climb out of a plummeting aircraft, the pilots of high-performance jets require a fast, automated exit from a doomed aircraft. Ejection seats achieve this by simply blasting the pilot's or passenger's seat free of the plane. Then a parachute deploys to provide the necessary drag to slow the descent back to the surface.
The escape capsule: In extreme conditions, military or experimental aircraft feature escape capsules for pilots or crew members. The principle is the same as that of an ejection seat, only instead of jettisoning a pilot in a naked seat, it entails the ejection of a pressurized pod. Some aircraft designs even go so far as to eject entire crew cabins as a single, multiperson escape capsule.
As such, planes have boasted several ingenious escape features over the years. Let's walk through some of the ways you might try to exit an aircraft in an emergency.
The evacuation slide: No one wants to abandon an airplane before landing, so if it's possible, pilots attempt to regain control or at least achieve a crash landing. At this point, you generally want to flee as far from the damaged airplane as possible. This is where the evacuation slide comes in handy. Compressed gas inflates the slide, allowing for speedy deployment. A passenger then slides down and, in some cases, the inflatable slide can be used as a flotation device.
The parachute: The first parachute jump from an airplane took place in 1912, a mere nine years after the Wright brothers' inaugural flight. It has remained an aviation staple, creating drag to slow down a moving object, person or aircraft. You won't find a cache of emergency chutes on a commercial airliner, however, as they typically operate at speeds and altitudes that would require additional safety gear. Skydiving also calls for individual training and regular parachute maintenance -- to say nothing of the logistics involved in evacuating a plane full of passengers in such a manner.
The ejection seat: This option generally remains the exclusive domain of military and experimental aircraft. While it was possible for the pilots of older, prop-driven aircraft to climb out of a plummeting aircraft, the pilots of high-performance jets require a fast, automated exit from a doomed aircraft. Ejection seats achieve this by simply blasting the pilot's or passenger's seat free of the plane. Then a parachute deploys to provide the necessary drag to slow the descent back to the surface.
The escape capsule: In extreme conditions, military or experimental aircraft feature escape capsules for pilots or crew members. The principle is the same as that of an ejection seat, only instead of jettisoning a pilot in a naked seat, it entails the ejection of a pressurized pod. Some aircraft designs even go so far as to eject entire crew cabins as a single, multiperson escape capsule.
2: ATC-Communications In The Skies
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At the very beginning of this article, we discussed the thousands upon thousands of aircraft that fill the sky regularly. How do they avoid crashing into each other and landing without unleashing absolute chaos? Well, we have the field ofavionics to thank.
Avionics entails all of an aircraft's electronic flight control systems: communications gear, navigation system, collision avoidance and meteorological systems. An overarching aerospace and air traffic control system ensures the safety of commercial and private aircraft as they take off, land and traverse vast distances without incident. Through the use of radar, computerized flight plans and steady communication, air traffic controllers ensure planes operate at safe distances from each other and redirect them around bad weather.
Needless to say, global air traffic control is a colossal task. It essentially involves governance of the skies, so we tackle that operation similarly to how we would on the ground: We divide things up. U.S. airspace, for example, breaks down into 21 air route traffic control centers (ARTCCs), each a designated territory that spans whole states and more. Internationally, you'll also hear these airspaces called area control centers(ACCs). Depending on a country's size, they may employ one or several ACCs.
If a flight takes a plane across several countries, it passes through various ACCs, each monitored by different air traffic controllers who give instructions to the pilot as needed. If a flight takes a plane into international airspace (the air above international waters), the crew will still depend on the assistance of an ACC, though the ground controllers may have to forgo the use of radar and depend on pilot reports and computer models. For a more in-depth look, read How Air Traffic Control Works.
Explore the links on the next page to learn even more about aviation.
Avionics entails all of an aircraft's electronic flight control systems: communications gear, navigation system, collision avoidance and meteorological systems. An overarching aerospace and air traffic control system ensures the safety of commercial and private aircraft as they take off, land and traverse vast distances without incident. Through the use of radar, computerized flight plans and steady communication, air traffic controllers ensure planes operate at safe distances from each other and redirect them around bad weather.
Needless to say, global air traffic control is a colossal task. It essentially involves governance of the skies, so we tackle that operation similarly to how we would on the ground: We divide things up. U.S. airspace, for example, breaks down into 21 air route traffic control centers (ARTCCs), each a designated territory that spans whole states and more. Internationally, you'll also hear these airspaces called area control centers(ACCs). Depending on a country's size, they may employ one or several ACCs.
If a flight takes a plane across several countries, it passes through various ACCs, each monitored by different air traffic controllers who give instructions to the pilot as needed. If a flight takes a plane into international airspace (the air above international waters), the crew will still depend on the assistance of an ACC, though the ground controllers may have to forgo the use of radar and depend on pilot reports and computer models. For a more in-depth look, read How Air Traffic Control Works.
Explore the links on the next page to learn even more about aviation.