In 22 facilities across the U.S., thousands of air traffic controllers actively watch the skies over their assigned sectors. Each Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) is almost a small town in itself. The Operations Room contains 50 to 60 consoles with large computer monitors displaying aircraft data blocks imposed on top of aviation landmarks […]

Watching the continuous streaming of a waterfall can be mesmerizing. Something inside all of us expects it to have a beginning or end, so we watch and wait, and eventually we just let it go—realizing that it will continue falling down in that place, sometimes for centuries. The wind is like that too, but we […]

It’s a beautiful morning and you just received a standard pilot weather briefing for a long cross-country flight—one that covers a day full of activity. The skies are calm, clear and worry-free right now, but the forecast indicates possible turbulence, icing or storm activity later in the day while you still expect to be in […]