Where Birds Don't Fly

A safety management system (SMS) is required for an applicant for an air operator certificate or an applicant for an airport certificate. An applicant is any person or entity applying for one of the certificates. A certificate is issued to the applicant, who becomes the certificate holder and the operator upon receiving the certificate. An applicant may choose to assign the role as an operator and certificate holder (CH) to any person or entity. An operator in respect of an airport is the certificate holder of the appropriate aviation document that is in force.  The appointment of an accountable executive (AE) and having an operational SMS in place is required for an applicant of an aviation document to establish their compliance record prior to issuing the certificate. An airport certificate is issued to an applicant authorizing the applicant to operate an aerodrome as an airport if the proposed airport operations manual is approved by the regulator, and the airport standards are ...

Conventional wisdom is that flying must be perfect with procedures detailed to the minute. With the global position system (GPS) airnavigation has become more precise and accurate for aircraft to maintain their tracks. Dead reckoning was the processes used when no navaids were available, or navaids were placed at a distance greater than aircraft reception. Dead reckoning is to determine without the aid of celestial navigation, electronic navigation, or GPS, the position of an aircraft from the desired track to be flown and the distance made from a known starting point. Operating by instrument flight rules (IFR) in uncontrolled airspace using the dead reckoning process created random events of aircraft and aircraft intercepting positions, and near misses.  With GPS and its precise course track, aircraft are now flying at predetermined intercepting positions allowing for predictable near miss positions. These positions are often unknown to pilots, since aircraft track while in uncont...