environment

Both Europe 24 and North Atlantic Skies were designed to give an overview of the daily complexity and volumes of air traffic across the UK and Europe and to do so in a way that was cinematic and exciting to watch. I think we were able to do that to great effect, but we now want to take you a little deeper.

We are therefore very excited to publish UK 24 – your guided tour to some of what makes UK aviation work.

Our airspace is busy, complex and there is a lot going on. Each year we manage around 2.2 million movements, peaking at over 8,000 a day (although there are around 7,000 on this particular day), with only 5.5 seconds delay per flight attributable to NATS. Obviously there are the flows of large aircraft from the airports into and out of the UK, but there is also a lot of activity outside controlled airspace. UK 24 is designed to help visualise the breadth and depth of UK aviation and why airspace is such an important asset.

The day starts with the bow wave of transatlantic traffic heading towards the UK on their organised and separated tracks. This is quickly joined by traffic from Europe and the first waves of departures from UK airports. Over a short period of time the traffic levels grow to show the main trunk roads of airspace as well as the hubs around London, Manchester and central Scotland.

We then move to give a unique view of the holding stacks over London and how they are a fundamental part of the Heathrow operation, providing the constant flow of traffic that makes it the world’s busiest dual runway airport with 1,350 movements a day.

Our tour then take us around the UK, including the other major airports, our two control centres in Swanwick and Prestwick, some general aviation traffic and examples of military training off the east coast of England and near to North Wales. We then dwell on the spider’s web of helicopter tracks that originate from Aberdeen, taking people and vital supplies to and from the North Sea oil and gas rigs.

We hope you enjoy this insight into the complexity and beauty of a day of UK air traffic and the value of airspace as the invisible infrastructure that makes it all work.

Value of aviation to the UK economy

The aviation sector and its supply chain generates over £20bn per year in economic output and directly employs circa 220,000 people. At Heathrow alone, goods worth £133 billion were shipped in and out last year, more than the combined value of goods transiting through the UK’s two largest ports, Felixstowe and Southampton.

Aviation is on average a much more productive sector than the rest of the economy; each pound spent on upgrading our aviation infrastructure is expected to generate over £5 in return. In addition aviation is a significant growth sector within key regions for UK trade, for example China, the Middle East and Turkey have ambitious plans to more than double their capacity.

Without additional capacity in the UK, we risk the rapid growth in traffic and its associated commerce being focused elsewhere.

SOURCE:::: Brendan Kelly in http://www.nats.aero.blog

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Message For the Day….” Whether it is Punishment or Protection , it is all Out of Dharma…”

February 26, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Following the true path of dharma, we will be in a position to receive much more benefit than what is anticipated. On the other hand, if we tread a path different from dharma, then we will find that if we have a thousand desires, not even one of those desires will be fulfilled. One who destroys dharma will in turn be destroyed by dharma, but one who protects dharma will in turn be protected by dharma. Whether it is punishment or protection it can arise only out of dharma. It is only by dharma that we can attain prosperity. We should try to follow the path followed by Dharmaraja (Yudhisthira) at least to a certain extent. Invest time to understand Indian culture, the scriptures(Ithihasas and Puranas) and Vedas and their sacred inner significance. There is no room for cruel and bad ideas, and it is possible for everyone to lead a good and happy life.

Sathya Sai Baba

Image of the Day…. ISS astronauts’ Space Walk Today… Feb 25…

February 25, 2015NatarajanLeave a comment

Today’s spacewalk – the 2nd of 3 planned – began at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 UTC) and will last 6.5 hours. This post has links to today’s live coverage, plus spectacular images from Saturday’s spacewalk.

$NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore works outside the International Space Station on the first of three spacewalks preparing the station for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, Saturday, February 21, 2015. Fellow spacewalker Terry Virts, seen reflected in the visor, shared this photograph on social media. View larger. \ Image credit; NASA$

NASA astronaut Barry Wilmore works outside the International Space Station on the first of three spacewalks preparing the station for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew spacecraft, Saturday, February 21, 2015. Fellow spacewalker Terry Virts, seen reflected in the visor, shared this photograph on social media.
View larger. | Image credit: NASA

Today – February 25, 2015 – beginning at 7:10 a.m. EST (1210 UTC), International Space Station (ISS) astronauts are performing the second of three spacewalks to prepare the orbiting laboratory for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew spacecraft. NASA TV coverage has begun and will go until 2 p.m. EST (1900 UTC) Wednesday. Watch here

NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts completed the first spacewalk on February 21 and the third is scheduled for Sunday, March 1.

The spacewalks are designed to lay cables along the forward end of the U.S. segment to bring power and communication to two International Docking Adapters slated to arrive later this year. The new docking ports will welcome U.S. commercial spacecraft launching from Florida beginning in 2017, permitting the standard station crew size to grow from six to seven and potentially double the amount of crew time devoted to research.

Ground controllers have maneuvered the space station’s large robotic arm Canadarm2 in place for work planned for Wednesday’s spacewalk. Spacewalkers Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts will start their spacewalk at 7:10 a.m. EST to lay more cables and lubricate one of Canadarm2’s two latching end effectors, which serve as tip or base for the robotic arm. They will also prepare the Tranquility module for the relocation of the Permanent Multipurpose Module and the new Bigelow Expanded Activity Module later this year.

All three spacewalks are in support of the long-planned ISS reconfiguration from its current configuration, which was designed to support visiting Space Shuttles, to its new configuration optimived for future visiting commercial crew and cargo vehicles.

While cargo vehicles attach to the ISS using the process of berthing, whereby they are captured with the station’s robotic arm and positioned below a berthing port prior to being bolted into place, commercial crew vehicles will not use this method.

This is because the process of un-berthing takes a long time to complete, since cables and ducting between the visiting spacecraft and the ISS must first be manually disconnected, control boxes installed, hatches closed, and then the visiting spacecraft must be maneuvered away from the station with the robotic arm.

This means that berthing ports cannot support a rapid evacuation of crew from the ISS should it ever be necessary, which will be one of the primary roles of the commercial crew vehicles as they serve as “lifeboats” during their crew’s stay at the ISS.

Instead, crewed vehicles will attach to the ISS via a process of docking, whereby the visiting spacecraft flies itself all the way into its docking port and attaches via a capture ring striking a corresponding attachment mechanism.

Bottom line: NASA astronauts Barry Wilmore and Terry Virts aboard the International Space Station completed the first of three spacewalk on February 21, 2105. The second is scheduled for Wednesday, February 25 and the third for Sunday, March 1. The astronauts are securing cables to prepare the orbiting laboratory for future arrivals by U.S. commercial crew.

SOURCE::::: http://www.earthskynews.org

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Maria Montessori

From a humble beginning, a great movement was born

As I write about one of the greatest educators of our times, Maria Montessori, my first question to myself is: “Why is a Waldorf teacher writing about Montessori”. Then I ask myself – why not? I think the first question comes from my conventional education and dogmatic beliefs. The second – from my unlearning over the years and becoming a free human being. To belong in one ideology or school of thought does not mean you can not see beauty in the other. So here is a Waldorf teacher from a completely different tradition, writing about Maria Montessori, not as a Montessorian but as someone deeply interested in learning how different educators used different lenses to view children and in doing so, how each one had a gift to give to them.

In early 1900, there existed in Rome a slum known as the San Lorenzo Quarter. Two buildings there housed the poorest class. During the day, the adults living at San Lorenzo would go off to work, the older children would be sent to school and the younger children between the ages of three and six began to vandalise the buildings, with no one to care for them. The governing body decided it would be less expensive to set aside one room for these kids and an adult as a caregiver than to continue to repair and repaint the whole building being damaged by these children. And, as history would have it, that caregiver was Dr. Maria Montessori. It was here in this Roman slum with those 60 children where she made discoveries that would direct her life’s work.

The news of her unprecedented success in Casa Dei Bambini or House of Children in San Lorenzo soon spread. Soon, Montessori was invited by several countries to set up centres for children. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison invited her to USA to give talks about her methods that gained immense popularity all over the world.

So what was it that was so special about her methods? Maria Montessori strongly believed that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment. She writes about it: “Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants – doing nothing but living and walking about – came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning , would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful, is a reality. It is the child’s way of learning. This is the path he follows. He learns everything without knowing he is learning it, and in doing so passes little from the unconscious to the conscious, treading always in the paths of joy and love.’

Maria Montessori received a doctor of Medicine degree in 1896, the first woman in Italy to achieve this status. She campaigned vigorously on women’s rights. She wrote and spoke on the need for greater opportunities for women and was recognised in Italy and beyond as a leading feminist voice. It was this outspokenness and leadership in thinking that landed her in trouble. She was also vociferous about her anti-fascist views and was forced to go into exile.

And, the country that became her home in exile was India. The Theosophical Society invited her to in 1939 and she made Adyar, Chennai her home for eight years. It was here that she developed her work ‘Education for peace’. And she was nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Today, most Montessori teachers use the materials used in Montessori classrooms – called the Didactic Apparatus, which was her discovery. But it would be a shame to reduce Montessori and her teachings to the mere apparatus. She and the children whom she crusaded for are much larger than that.

(Santhya is an educator and founder of Yellow Train)

SOURCE::::: Santhya Vikram in http://www.the hindu.com

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Message For the Day….” Whether it is Punishment or Protection , it is all Out of Dharma…”

” You are Doing A Mistake …” Your Pen Will Tell Now … !!!

The tiny computer inside the pen points out errors in penmanship as well as spelling mistakes

The Gift of Maria Montessori….

From a humble beginning, a great movement was born

Message For the Day…” Life Has got Greater Meaning and Deeper Significance …”