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Commercial Aviation Safety Review"Commercial Aviation Safety" is a great introductory text for students wanting exposure to most safety considerations in aviation. The book is a well-organized survey, although I only award it four stars because the authors frequently get off-topic into areas only tangentially related to aviation safety.
The book opens with a discussion of the aviation regulatory and historical framework. This goes rapidly astray, with discussions of everything from the 1978 lead standard to the 1989 Hazardous Waste Operations and Emergency Response Standard (HAZWOPER), which deals with toxic spill cleanup. Both of these could be tied to aviation safety, but the numerous citations of this nature serve to dilute the import of more important and common aviation safety programs.
Chapter two is a good overview of rulemaking processes, and I agree with the authors that the current FAA rulemaking process is far to labyrinthine at 217 steps long. Unfortunately, chapter two gets into a protracted discussion of OSHA related topics including quagmires like the Small Business Regulatory Enforcement and Fairness Act (SBREFA) which are not especially germane to aviation. Chapter three is a good introduction to the NTSB.
Chapter four is on "Recording and Reporting Safety Data" and is one of the key chapters in the book. The authors make excellent points about accidents and incidents as precursors to accidents (page 75). I was amazed to find that the FAA has 280 separate data collection systems. Clearly a database management system would be of great help to the government. On page 84 the authors have written a great explanation of Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) and the Air Transport Oversight System (ATOS). Anyone interested in this field needs a good working knowledge of these two components. The authors once again (page 92) make the excellent point that nonaccident safety data is vital in identifying and estimating the magnitude of safety problems. Chapter four, unfortunately, closes off course with a discussion of chemical spill reporting requirements. This is only applicable to extremely specialized professionals and is not readily of interest to readers of a survey on aviation safety. (This, for instance, is the closing line of the chapter: "RCRA listed hazardous wastes (F, K, P, U) under 40 CFR Part 261, Subpart D, and characteristic wastes (I, C, R, TC) under 40 CFR Part 261, Subpart C, are reportable if the release equals or exceeds the designated RQ.")
Chapter five is an overview of safety statistics, and pages 102-103 contain an excellent discussion of the utility and interpretation of accident rates and their use as indicators of risk trends. Beginning in chapter five, though, the pro-Boeing bias of the authors becomes readily apparent. Many safety advances are attributed to Boeing when they were actually introduced first or done better by another manufacturer. Chapter five also contains a summary of accident statistics that is useful, although monotonously written.
Chapter six deals with accident causation modeling, and introduces several models including the 5-M model (page 145.) It also contains good discussions of risk management (page 151) and human performance factors (page 160.)
Chapter seven starts with (page 163) an excellent discussion of the management of error, which is becoming more important in aviation today. It goes astray on page 164, though, with an inaccurate Boeing versus Airbus example in which Boeing is seen as the champion for simplicity and Airbus for complexity. The authors then get into an example of fuel system design. Anyone who has flown the B-747-400 and the newer Airbus products (A-320 and subsequent) can refute the assertion that Boeing is simpler. The 747-400 has the most nightmarish fuel system I have ever been exposed to, whereas the Airbus fuel system is very simple to operate. Even the "simpler" Boeings like the 757 and 767 have more fuel-related operational limitations and user knowledge requirements than a newer Airbus. My point here isn't to denigrate Boeing, but to point out that some of the examples in the book are perhaps skewed by personal knowledge or bias. Page 170 has an interesting comparison of 757/767 versus A-320 envelope protection. It is generally well balanced and technically correct, but their conclusion about windshear escape maneuvers is not justified: many simulator studies have now been carried out comparing the Boeing and Airbus escape profiles, and in all that I am aware of the Airbus full aft stick recovery provided greater ground clearance in identical conditions. I am unsurprised that the B-777 is cited for the electronic checklist (ECL) as a safety improvement, although all Airbus aircraft since the A-310 have had excellent ECAM automatic normal and abnormal checklists.
The remainder of the book is an overview of Air Traffic Control (although the authors contend that Free Flight is alive, most think it's DOA), and airline specific information, which is generally good. The book credits the 737 with starting the two-pilot cockpit, while actually the DC-9 flew much earlier. The Flight Control Computer (FCC) discussion of page 248 discusses the advances in modern FCCs, though fails to mention that the architecture being described is exclusive to Airbus. Once again the chapter deteriorates at the end with a discussion of 29 CFR 1910.215, Abrasive Wheel Machinery (pedestal grinders and other grinding wheels), and a discussion of the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists under 29 CFR 1910 Subpart Z.
Security is well covered in Chapter 11, although perhaps the discussion of nuclear quadrupole resonance technology, and the Body Orifice Security Scanner (BOSS) are more rooted in minutia than is needed in a text of this nature.
Chapter 12 concerns airline safety programs, and discusses employee selection. Particularly excellent is the discussion of requirements for a Safety Director (page 352). The discussion of Internal Evaluation Programs (page 346) is also superior.
This book is a great resource. The material within it would rate five stars if it weren't for the fairly constant introduction of material only tangentially relevant to aviation safety. I recommend this book for any aviation student or professional.
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