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Weather Hazards: St. Elmo's Fire and its Impact on Aviation

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Hello Class, Weather in aviation is a serious issue, due to the many phenomena that can occur during flight that have already caused many accidents; the aviation community must always stay vigilant because weather can change in the blink of an eye. Have you ever heard of St. Elmo's Fire? First, let's take a look into history a bit. Saint Elmo's Fire gains its name from Saint Erasmus of Formia the Patron Saint of Sailors.  In the days of sailing wooden ships with tall masts, the ship's rigging and masts would glow blue when near thunderstorm activity and the sailors believed that it was fire from St. Elmo, and they believed it was a good omen or good fortune.  It is a rare weather phenomenon that "occurs when the atmosphere becomes charged and an electrical potential strong enough to cause a discharge (plasma) is created between an object and the air around it. This can happen to an aircraft flying through heavily charged skies (SKYbrary, (2024)." This electrif...
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TOP FLIGHT SECURITY - TSA SECURITY MEASURES - THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE WAY FORWARD

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The Transportation Security Administration faces an invisible enemy every second of every day, that poses an extreme risk to travelers, and workers in airports across the country. Ranging from terrorists, bomb threats, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), cyber-attacks, and more. This has pushed the TSA to evolve and develop new procedures and tactics to combat the ever-growing hostile presence. The TSA was created after the violent and terrible acts of 9/11 when then-President Bush signed into effect the Aviation and Transportation Security Act.  This Act "required screening conducted by federal officials, 100 percent checked baggage screening, expansion of the Federal Air Marshal Service and reinforced cockpit doors; and finally, the TSA being created to oversee security in all modes of transportation (TSA, 2023)."  Following the implementation of the TSA, the agents have halted even more threats with the implementation of strict security protocols.  They stopped the infamo...
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Cloudy Ethics: Dilemmas in the Aviation Industry

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The aviation industry must have a solid foundation of ethics.  A faulty foundation of ethics can lead to incidents resulting in catastrophic consequences, and loss of life or limb. Boeing has been having major concerns of ethical dilemmas since the 1980s , " Boeing has been punished for an equally long list of ethical and criminal transgressions. They ranged from illegally snaring restricted Pentagon planning documents to stealing a rival’s rocket development plans (Pasztor, 2024)." Recently Boeing 737 Max had a cabin blowout that injured multiple passengers due to its obvious lack of quality control and integrity when it came to reporting defects or issues in its aircraft. Before this incident, 2 crashes of 2 Boeing 737 Max's resulted in the loss of 346 lives. It appears that over the years Boeing has been dodging their responsibility to maintain a high standard of products as well as taking accountability for the lack thereof.  " As a result, Boeing’s leaders didn’...
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