Circuits
and Chips

a place to write on software, chip development and linux, for fun and in an informal way.

Aviation

This section is in a clear violation of the Blog title, blog address and the description in the side bar, but who cares since this is my blog and I don’t think people will read stuff here 😅.

I think I could say that I am an aviation enthusiast (basically I like planes and things involving them :). Many people consider traveling in an aeroplane is a status-quo. I think so too given the prices especially in India where the railway network is one of the best modes of transport. I like trains too but there is not much that is visible compared to traveling in an aeroplane. But to be honest I personally think that buying an aeroplane ticket will give a person one of the best experiences in four fields - operations, physics, engineering and Mother nature. I love the complexicity involved in this entire system and a single plane ticket will not just help you travel from one place to another but also get inside this system and let you observe everything closely and bring back a lot of questions! I took more than 25 flights between 2022 and 2023 and this really made me curious about the groud operations, airport layouts, aeroplane structures, the physics involved in flying, the communication network in this entire system and not to mention the view from the top when the sun rises and the cloud gets cleared while you fly on an average of 30000fts directly above sea. So I started educating myself about airports, physics behind flying, how planes communicate etc. I mostly watch YouTube for this knowledge and later read on specific topics on Wikipedia website.

Right now, I am looking at this book “Stick and Rudder” written by a German that still stands one of the best books explaining aerodynamics.

Blog Articles

Resources

Here are a few YouTube videos to understand a few basic things in this industry - Aviation YouTube videos
Remember the 4 things that I mentioned above that I like in this field. Above link covers the first three and this one covers the last part, Mother nature - Flight pictures
Global Airspace realtime map - https://www.flightradar24.com/
Global Airport Navigation site - https://ourairports.com/ One can find here info on VOR, NDB too
Indian Airspace map - https://digitalsky.dgca.gov.in/airspace-map/#/app

Interesting Facts

Heathrow airport -

I recently came across the list of airport hubs with more international connection routes which I later compared with the list of busiest airports in the world. London Heathrow airport caught my attention. It stands in top 10 list of world’s busiest airports interms of passengers traffic [2] and top 5 list of airport hubs [1] with more international connectivity. One would expect that the airport must have more number of runways to keep it on the list. In fact, all other airports on this list actually does with at least 4 runways (Munich and Zurich being an exception). But surprisingly (or not very surprise if you know the reason) London Heathrow airport has only two runways both in parallel to each other. It makes sense because it is in the middle of the city (just like Munich) and there is a push to add more number of runaways but due to its position, it is really impossible to get approval from the local public to give up land. There is also a night-flight ban imposed between 23.00 and 6.00 next day because of the noise. There are proposals to construct a new airport outside the city but they need to take quicks actions because people say that this airport and the city may lose the status of being an important international airport hub if more runways are not added.

Turkish Airlines -

I was also quite surprised that Turkey (Istanbul Sabiha Gökçen International Airport) is the second top international airport interms of international connectivity. It makes sense after looking at its position on the global map. Now Turkish Airlines offering the most international routes [3] makes sense too. There is a research paper that explains the international network, fleet mix of Turkish airlines [4]. Here is a video that explains the history of Turkish Airlines [5].

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