Session 4 at SOAR by Avembsys

                   The fourth session was scheduled at 3 pm and we saw the various classification of aircrafts and also analysed a case study on an air disaster that took place on 25th january 1990. The session was of short duration but nevertherless an interesting one.
                    We first discussed about the project that we were assigned to do,
each of us gave our insight of how we intend to progress further and our techlead has guaranteed full support for the same. Then we looked at the evolution of aircrafts, the Ornithopter, the Lighter than aircraft, the Airplane,
the Glider and the Flyer.
                    Aircrafts are classified based on the space in which they operate, i.e., ionosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere and the troposphere. An Aircraft is one which flies from one place on the earth to the other where as a spacecraft flies from one planet to another in the universe. This is the essential difference between the two.
                   Aircrafts are further classified based on the following, propulsion, crew, wings, type of wings, landing mode, engines, number of engines and function. Special types included Reconnaissance, AWACS, microplane, aerial refuelling, vertical takeoff and stealth aircraft. What caught my eye among these is the stealth aircraft which cannot be detected by any radar in the world. It is designed in a manner such that the electromagnetic waves from the radar are scattered away by this aircraft and would fly as though it was invisible. Simple amazing!! but it comes at cost of a whopping two billion dollars.
                    We also saw the skycar and the solo trek XFV solo flying machine and also disscussed about the bermuda triangle where 50 ships and 20 airplanes have crashed due to various factors. We then saw video clip of an air disaster. It was AVIANCA 052 passenger airplane flying from Borgoto to New York.
                    The crash was due to a series of factors. The main factor was due to the mis-communication between the ATC(air traffic control) and the pilots.
The captain of the aircraft was poor in english, hence the co-pilot had to be the mediator between the ATC and the captain. Another reason was the bad weather at the JFK airport, which saw only one runway operating, because of which the air traffic increased. AVIANCA 052 was made to circle around(also called the holding pattern) for more than an hour which caused the fuel load to decrease and crashed due to engine shutdown. The co-pilot also did not declare an emergency, instead he used the word priority which led to further confusion. 85 of the 158 passengers were rescued. ILS called the instrument landing system is a new technology which helps the pilots to align the airplane to the centre of the runway by lateral and vertical guidance.                                          
                           This was the end of another session at SOAR and i look forward for further upcoming sessions.