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...
The place I work is on the second floor and my workstation is right beside a window which opens to the parking lot of sector 8 of Chandigarh. My location gives me the chance to view numerous cars. Looking at these cars from the top is a pleasing distraction. At times when I am out of ideas on what to write then I start looking outside at these cars coming and going. Of late, I noticed that sunroof has become quite common in cars. Anyone having a car above 15 lakh or so prefers to have a sunroof. Then came the thought of the purpose of having a sunroof in cars in a country like India. In our beloved country, I am talking about plains here like UP, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, etc.It is bright and sunny most part of the year. Thanks to uncontrolled cutting of trees, increasing population, rapid construction all around, the winter season has been reduced to just two to three months in a year. Days in which our God sun is not seen is not more than a month. In the major part of the year, ...