Over 66,000 airline pilot jobs exist for larger mainline and smaller regional airlines that operate over 7,000 commercial aircraft. After a decade of turmoil that curtailed growth in the industry and resulted in fewer pilots employed at airlines since 2000, recent industry forecasts indicate that the global aviation industry is poised for growth. However, stakeholders have voiced concerns that imminent retirements, fewer pilots exiting the military, and new rules increasing the number of flight hours required to become a first officer for an airline, could result in a shortage of qualified airline pilots. This book describes what available data and forecasts reveal about the need for and potential availability of airline pilots, and what actions industry and government are taking or could take to attract and retain airline pilots. It then discusses what available data and forecasts reveal about the need for and potential availability of aerospace engineers, aircraft mechanics, and avionics technicians, and what actions industry and the federal government are taking to help attract and retain these professionals.

Join the real Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines as they compete in the Round Britain race. .Woodward's warm, wry account of learning to fly will lift hearts everywhere. BBC2 documentary based on the book - 30 January 2012. Antony Woodward wasn't interested in flying, he was interested in his image. So in his world of socialising and serial womanising, a microlight plane sounded like the ideal sex aid. So why - once he discovers that he has no ability as a pilot, it costs a fortune and its maddening unreliability loses him the one girl he really wants - does he get more and more hooked? As he monitors the changes to the others in the syndicate; as he learns that there is a literal down-side to cheating in flying exams, shunning responsibility and pretending to know stuff you don't, the question keeps on surfacing. Why? As the misadventures mount - accidents, tussles with Tornadoes, arrest by the RAF - he keeps thinking he's worked it out. But it isn't until The Crash, in which he nearly kills himself and Dan (taking a short-cut in the Round Britain race) that the penny finally drops.... Flying is the antidote to modern life he didn't even know he needed. It's the supreme way to feel real.

Whether a trainee is studying air traffic control, piloting, maintenance engineering, or cabin crew, they must complete a set number of training 'hours' before being licensed or certified. The aviation industry is moving away from an hours-based to a competency-based training system. Within this approach, training is complete when a learner can demonstrate competent performance. Training based on competency is an increasingly popular approach in aviation. It allows for an alternate means of compliance with international regulations - which can result in shorter and more efficient training programs. However there are also challenges with a competency-based approach. The definition of competency-based education can be confusing, training can be reductionist and artificially simplistic, professional interpretation of written competencies can vary between individuals, and this approach can have a high administrative and regulatory burden. Competency-Based Education in Aviation: Exploring Alternate Training Pathways explores this approach to training in great detail, considering the four aviation professional groups of air traffic control, pilots, maintenance engineers, and cabin crew. Aviation training experts were interviewed and have contributed professional insights along with personal stories and anecdotes associated with competency-based approaches in their fields. Research-based and practical strategies for the effective creation, delivery, and assessment of competency-based education are described in detail.

Despite growing concern with the effects of concurrent task demands on human performance, and research demonstrating that these demands are associated with vulnerability to error, so far there has been only limited research into the nature and range of concurrent task demands in real-world settings. This book presents a set of NASA studies that characterize the nature of concurrent task demands confronting airline flight crews in routine operations, as opposed to emergency situations. The authors analyze these demands in light of what is known about cognitive processes, particularly those of attention and memory, with the focus upon inadvertent omissions of intended actions by skilled pilots. The studies reported within the book employed several distinct but complementary methods: ethnographic observations, analysis of incident reports submitted by pilots, and cognitive task analysis. They showed that concurrent task management comprises a set of issues distinct from (though related to) mental workload, an area that has been studied extensively by human factors researchers for more than 30 years. This book will be of direct relevance to aviation psychologists and to those involved in aviation training and operations. It will also interest individuals in any domain that involves concurrent task demands, for example the work of emergency room medical teams. Furthermore, the countermeasures presented in the final chapter to reduce vulnerability to errors associated with concurrent task demands can readily be adapted to work in diverse domains.

Born in the Philippines to an American father and a Filipina mother, George Cooper is one of the few surviving veteran pilots who saw action over such fearsome targets as Rabaul and Wewak. Not just another flag-waving story of air combat, Jayhawk describes the war as it really was - a conflict with far-reaching tentacles that gripped and tore at not only the combatants, but also their families, friends and the way they lived their lives. Stout examines the story of Cooper's growing up in gentle and idyllic pre-war Manila and how he grew to be the man he is. At 100 years old, few men are left alive who can share similar experiences. Stout reviews Cooper's journey to the United States and his unlikely entry into the United States Army Air Forces. Trained as a B-25 pilot, Cooper was assigned to the iconic 345th Bomb Group and flew strafing missions that shredded the enemy, but likewise put himself and his comrades in grave danger. A husband and father, Cooper was pulled two ways by the pull of duty and his obligation to his wife and daughter. And always on his mind was the family he left behind in the Philippines who were under the Japanese thrall.

In the early morning of 20 April 1942, forty-seven Spitfire Vs of 601 and 603 Squadrons of the Auxiliary Air Force launched from the deck of the American aircraft carrier the USS Wasp, which had sailed to a position north of Algiers. The planes were bound for Malta. At the time, the island was under heavy siege by Axis forces. Salvatore Walcott's Spitfire never made it; he crash-landed in North Africa, part of Vichy France, and was interned. After attempting to escape, Walcott was liberated at the end of 1942. He returned to the UK and joined the US Army Air Corps and continued to serve as a pilot until the end of the war and afterwards with the USAF during the Berlin airlift. These are the bare bones of the story. But was that landing in Africa 'an inexplicable defection', as it has been described? Here is the evidence, alongside an exploration of American and British attitudes to men like Walcott who served under foreign flags. Walcott's story has been discussed for many years, but here is the truth. Did the Spitfire's undercarriage fail to retract, as Walcott claimed, or did he lose his nerve? Does the fact that Walcott later gained a reputation as a risk-taker indicate a 'Lord Jim' narrative, whereby he tried to make up for a moment of cowardice? Walcott's ultimately tragic tale is set against the larger narrative of Irish/American and British/Vichy France relations, of the Mediterranean theatre, aircraft design, and the US entry into the war.

Black Tulip is the dramatic story of history's top fighter ace, Luftwaffe pilot Erich Hartmann. It's also the story of how his service under Hitler was simplified and elevated to Western mythology during the Cold War. Over 1,404 wartime missions, Hartmann claimed a staggering 352 airborne kills, and his career contains all the dramas you would expect. There were the frostbitten fighter sweeps over the Eastern Front, drunken forays to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, a decade of imprisonment in the wretched Soviet POW camps, and further military service during the Cold War that ended with conflict and angst. Just when Hartmann's second career was faltering, he was adopted by a network of writers and commentators personally invested in his welfare and reputation. These men, mostly Americans, published elaborate, celebratory stories about Hartmann and his elite fraternity of Luftwaffe pilots. With each dogfight tale put into print, Hartmann's legacy became loftier and more secure, and his complicated service in support of Nazism faded away. A simplified, one-dimensional account of his life - devoid of the harder questions about allegiance and service under Hitler - has gone unchallenged for almost a generation. Black Tulip locates the ambiguous truth about Hartmann and so much of the German Wehrmacht in general: that many of these men were neither full-blown Nazis nor impeccable knights. They were complex, contradictory, and elusive. This book portrays a complex human rather than the heroic caricature we're used to, and it argues that the tidy, polished hero stories we've inherited about men like Hartmann say as much about those who've crafted them as they do about the heroes themselves.

At the outbreak of the second World War, Air Chief Marshall Dowding was Commander-in-Chief of RAF Fighter Command, which had been set up three years earlier to protect Britain against attacks from the air and the threat of invasion. London was subjected to extensive night bombing for several months. However, our fighter squadrons and defence systems enabled us to maintain master of the air. The Battle of Britain ended in 1940 and our island was never again under the threat of invasion. Peter Brown, former Battle of Britain Spitfire pilot, presents a vivid account of Britain under the threat of invasion, reminding us of the bravery of our fighter pilots and the courage of the people of Britain who endured the hardships of war and terror bombing from the air. Through personal experience and years of meticulous research Peter offers a careful analysis of the battle and the tactics involved, vigorously defending Dowding's command and exposing the conspiracy of senior officers that saw him removed from office without due recognition for his achievement.

Advances in computer, visual display, motion and force cueing and other technologies in the past two decades have had a dramatic effect on the design and use of simulation technology in aviation and other fields. The effective use of technology in training, safety investigation, engineering and scientific research requires an understanding of its capabilities and limitations. As the technology has as its primary goal the creation of virtual environments for human users, knowledge of human sensory, perceptual, and cognitive functioning is also needed. This book provides a review and analysis of the relevant engineering and science supporting the design and use of advanced flight simulation technologies. It includes chapters reviewing key simulation areas such as visual scene, motion, and sound simulation and a chapter analyzing the role of recreating the pilot's task environment in the overall effectiveness of simulators. The design and use of flight simulation are addressed in chapters on the effectiveness of flight simulators in training and on the role of physical and psychological fidelity in simulator design. The problems inherent in the ground-based simulation of flight are also reviewed as are promising developments in flight simulation technology and the important role flight simulators play in advanced aviation research. The readership includes: flight simulation engineers and designers, human factors researchers and practitioners, aviation safety investigators, flight training management and instructors, training and instructional technologists, virtual environment design community, and regulatory authorities.

Taking readers step-by-step through the major issues surrounding the use of English in the global aviation industry, this book provides a clear introduction to turning research into practice in the field of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), specifically Aviation English, and a valuable case study of applied linguistics in action. With both cutting-edge research and evidence-based practice, the critical role of English in aviation is explored across a variety of contexts, including the national and global policies impacting training and language assessment for pilots, air-traffic controllers, ground staff, and students. English in Global Aviation teaches readers how to apply linguistic research to real world, practical settings. The book uses a range of corpus-based findings and related research to provide an effective analysis of the language needs of the aviation industry and an extended look at linguistic principles in action. Readers are presented with case studies, transcriptions, radiotelephony, and a clear breakdown of the common vocabulary and phrasal patterns of aviation discourse. Students and teachers of both linguistics and aviation will discover the requirements and challenges of successful intercultural communication in this industry, as well as insights into how to teach, develop, and assess aviation English language courses.

It was early Cold War days when 17-year-old David Eagles applied to the Fleet Air Arm hoping to be a fighter pilot for his national service. He little imagined the career that would follow. After flying training with the US Navy and Australian Fleet Air Arm, he settled into Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot life. He progressed through Naval Test Pilot duties - where he was forced to eject from a Buccaneer during catapult launch trials - before joining British Aerospace and playing a major part in the cockpit design and flight-testing of the RAF's first fly-by-wire and swing-wing aircraft, the Panavia Tornado. His other experiences include ditching a Firefly into the sea and the near loss of the first British Tornado prototype after a bird strike. Finally, after 6,000 flying hours in sixty different types of aircraft, Eagles finished his career by making the first flight of the EAP, the technology demonstrator for the new Eurofighter Typhoon. Vividly illustrated with photographs, documents and plans, this is a fascinating memoir of naval-flying and test-flying some of the world's most iconic fighters.

No airforce in the Second World War would make more use of captured planes than the Luftwaffe. With this in mind, Jean-Louis Roba has undergone a considerable amount of work in tracking down hundreds of aircraft used by the Luftwaffe and illustrating their uses, careers and eventual fates. The book examines the full history of foreign planes in the Luftwaffe, from its inception in the prewar years to the end of the Second World War. More than just an account of the Luftwaffes use of captured aircraft, the book debunks myths about how prepared the Germans were for war in 1939, and shows how important even such an unreliable source of supplies as captured planes would become to the Luftwaffe. Translated into English for the first time, Robas investigative work is supported by over a hundred pictures of the planes themselves, and gives a rare opportunity to see British and American planes repainted in German colours and symbols.

Jeff Gray won the Distinguished Flying Medal in command of a Lancaster bomber. After the war he flew the York, Hermes, Stratocruiser, Comet 4, and VC10. In this beautifully written memoir he takes the reader from agricultural work in rural Scotland to a Lancaster over Berlin, and on to the challenges of airline flying in the post-war years.

Born into a family of aviators, Merrill Wien was destined to become a pilot. His father, Noel Wien, was one of the first pilots to fly in Alaska and his life was full of firsts, including making the first round-trip flight between Asia and North America in 1929. His mother played a big role in the founding and development of Wien Alaska Airlines, the second-oldest scheduled airline in the United States and territories. One of the most versatile and experienced pilots of his time, Merrill has flown just about every aircraft imaginable from DC-3s to Lockheed 1011s to historic military planes like the cargo C-46 and B-29 bomber to the Hiller UH-12E chopper. Although fundamentally modest by nature, family and friends encouraged Merrill to share his remarkable stories given his accomplishments and experiences with so many famous people and events. His tone is engagingly informal as he recounts crossing paths with such luminaries as Joe Crosson, Howard Hughes, Lowell Thomas Sr. and Lowell Thomas Jr., Sam White, Don Sheldon, Brad Washburn, Wally Schirra, and Bill Anders. He re-creates for readers his firsthand experiences flying top-secret missions for the Air Force, viewing the devastation of the Good Friday Earthquake in Anchorage, and the challenges of starting his own helicopter company, to name just a few. His fascinating narrative is complemented by photographs from his personal archives. Includes a list of all the different aircraft Wien has been endorsed to fly at the back of the book.

This text covers fundamentals used in the navigation and guidance of modern aerospace vehicles, in both atmospheric and space flight. It can be used as a textbook supporting a graduate level course on aerospace navigation and guidance, a guide for self-study, or a resource for practicing engineers and researchers. It begins with an introduction that discusses why navigation and guidance ought to be considered together and delineates the class of systems of interest in navigation and guidance. The book then presents the necessary fundamentals in deterministic and stochastic systems theory and applies them to navigation. Next, the book treats optimization and optimal control for application in optimal guidance. In the final chapter, the book introduces problems where two competing controls exercise authority over a system, leading to differential games. Fundamentals of Aerospace Navigation and Guidance features examples illustrating concepts and homework problems at the end of all chapters.

Air-route development in Africa was a result of Sir Alan Cobham's 1929 flight through and round Africa in a flying-boat. Lady Cobham accompanied her husband throughout the journey. This work features Sir Alan Cobham's account of his journey. First published in 1930, it is illustrated with over 50 photographs from the trip, from the family archive.

A decorated fighter pilot and PGA professional tells the story of his life and service-to both his nation and others-in this remarkable memoir that is a stirring record of faith, patriotism, family, philanthropy, and golf. What does it mean to be a patriot? For Oklahoma native Dan Rooney, it is someone who not only puts his life on the line for country, but who opens his heart and mind and seeks to build a life that embodies the purest and most concentrated essence of himself. For many, Rooney is the model of a patriot: as an Air Force pilot who deployed to Iraq, serving three tours of duty; as a professional golfer who established a nonprofit foundation awarding thousands of scholarships to the children of fallen and disabled veterans; as the father of five daughters; as a man of faith, whose copilot, both in the skies and on the ground, has always been God. A Patriot's Calling is his autobiographical journey through some of the most character-defining moments of his awe-inducing life and career. "On my third tour of duty in Iraq as F -16 fighter pilot, I felt a powerful calling from God to share the miraculous fusion of people and experiences uniquely placed along my journey. During my reflection, I began to understand how the forces of synchronicity had shaped my life. Synchronicity, or, as I like to call it, 'chance with a purpose,' is all around us. These encounters with God's messengers are the sign-posts along the road of life guiding us toward our essence." A Patriot's Calling illuminates Rooney's true essence-and offers guidance and inspiration for us all. A Patriot's Calling includes 40 photos and 3 maps.