What if a technology designed to save lives quietly became a tool to collect money? Louisiana has just taken a stand—and the rest of the aviation world should be paying attention. For years, ADS-B has been promoted as one of the biggest advances in aviation safety. It allows aircraft to broadcast their precise position, altitude, speed, and direction, giving pilots and air traffic controllers far better situational awareness. It is a safety tool—not a luxury. Now, there is some encouraging news from the United States. Louisiana has officially become the third U.S. state to ban the use of ADS-B flight data for billing aircraft owners. The move follows similar legislation in North Dakota and Montana. The concern is simple: ADS-B was introduced to improve safety, but in some places the same data has started being used to generate landing or airport fees. Many pilots and aviation organizations, including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), have argued that this creates the w...
Google is an amazing thing. It tells us things which we cannot know otherwise. My latest conquest of mine is a result of curiosity developed in me by Google baba. I was finally able to arrive at Kutlehar Fort near Una, Himachal Pradesh. This fort is better known or more famous as Solasingi Fort. But why it took me seven years to reach this place is in itself an interesting story. Please hold on with me. Somewhere in 2017, when I was working in an immigration company WWICS, and while on a break and at my wife accomodation at Shri Anandpur Sahib, I was searching happishly for a place that is near to our location and makes for an interesting historic place. Our location in this situation was Shri Keshgarh Sahib, Shri Anandpur Sahib. I fingered the historic places near me in the google chrome search on my mobile phone and it showed me a place called Kutlehar Fort somewhere around 40 - 50 kms from where I was. At that time we only had a motorcycle, Bajaj Platina and we could make a round tr...