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By Dave Jesse on November 27, 2019

This is, I have to admit, a blog only tangentially related to aviation, but I came across a mathematical jollity which I just had to share. Woodburner My brother-in-law lives in a cottage in Devon, and wanted to fit a second stove to keep his house warmer. The chimney goes up from the stove, through […]

FDC

When is a Frame Not a Frame – The Sequel to The Sequel

By Dave Jesse on August 13, 2019

Those of you who have the memory of an elephant will recall that in 2016 we discussed superframes and the superframe counter. While the true aficionados of this blog will go and view G-ACDC, the normal reader could probably do with a brief summary of this topic. Superframe Recap Parameters that vary slowly […]

FDC

When Do You Stop?

By Dave Jesse on July 22, 2019

It sounds like a simple question, but sometimes the task seems to grow while the target moves further from your grasp. Here is a tale of one such case which illustrates how hard it can be to decide when to stop working on a problem. An Undefined Error One of our customers raised a support […]

FDC

When is a Sample Rate not a Sample Rate?

By Dave Jesse on July 12, 2019

That is the question. Whether it is nobler… OK, let’s stop quoting Shakespeare and get down to engineering.It is common for us to talk about sample rates as 1Hz, 2Hz etc. and in flight data recording we are usually talking about sample rates that are powers of two. If we have a parameter at 8Hz […]

FDC

Runway Marking Quiz Results

By Dave Jesse on June 11, 2019

OK, I have to admit to a little subterfuge. I wanted to ask a question which I thought might be a little embarrassing and so, rather than ask the tricky question straight out, I hid it inside a quiz. For all those who took part in our recent runway marking quiz, I thank you for […]

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Dave’s Runway Marking Quiz

By Dave Jesse on May 7, 2019

Flight Data Services are interested to understand where pilots aim to land when flying a visual approach. Of course, visual cues are not recorded on the Flight Data Recorder – how could they be?! Please take part in our little quiz and when you send in your answer, we will return a more detailed explanation […]

News

Monitoring TCAS Resolution Advisory Alerts

By Dave Jesse on April 25, 2019

It’s been some time since I last posted on this blog. There are some weak excuses (lots of work to get the TCAS RAs working correctly, busy running a business) and some strong excuses (three weeks holiday on a narrowboat, son’s wedding etc.). Anyhow, I’m back on the blogging trail and I can tell you […]

FDC

Automating Flight Data Conversion

By Dave Jesse on August 22, 2018

I have been working on TCAS monitoring recently, and I’ll tell you more about that in future blogs, however in the middle of this work a friend asked why we didn’t just automate the processing of flight data. On the same day I sorted out one confusing data format, and, by putting the two together, […]

FDC

Monitoring TCAS Traffic Advisory Alerts

By Dave Jesse on August 2, 2018

A quick recap for those unfamiliar with TCAS. The Traffic alert and Collision Avoidance System (TCAS II) helps to protect aircraft from hitting each other, so is a Good Thing. Please don’t ask me what happened to TCAS I or the differences between versions 6.04a and 7.1 etc. I’m not a TCAS expert. If you […]

FDC

How High is the Deck?

By Dave Jesse on July 5, 2018

Customers who land helicopters on oil rigs need to know how high they are on the approach with respect to the deck height, and not with respect to the water. Of course, during the approach they are over the sea and the radio altimeter gives good readings for the sea and, as all good mariners […]