Aviation Systems: Core Concepts (Part 2)

In late July, an excursion into the aggregation of the core aviation systems concepts had begun. The intention: to get a better understanding of the discipline. And to get a firm grasp of what pitotic static systems are and what they are for, a basic, rudimentary knowledge of the relevant concepts is necessary. Terms such as air data test systems and RVSM test equipment cannot be understood from the get-go.

Civil aviation

Civil aviation is one of two major categories of flying that represents non-military aviation, both private and commercial. The majority of countries around the world are members of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), working together to establish a consistent and universal set of standards and recommended practices for civil aviation through that agency. The two major categories encompassing cival aviation are:

• Scheduled air transport. This includes every passenger and every cargo flight operating on regularly scheduled paths and routes.
• General aviation (or GA for short). This includes all other civil flights, either commercial or private.

Even though scheduled air transport is the bigger operation in terms of the number of passengers, General Aviation is greater in terms of the actual number of flights in the United States of America. In the United States of America, General Aviation carries over 166 million passengers every single year - more than any individual airline, though far less than every single airline combined.
A good number of countries also make a regulatory distinction. This is based on whether or not the aircraft are flown for hire like:

• Commercial aviation includes almost all flying that is done for hire, particularly scheduled service on airlines.
• Private aviation includes pilots that fly for their own purposes (recreation, business related reasons, etc.) without receiving pay.

International Civil Aviation Organization

The International Civil Aviation Organization is a United Nations agency that serves to codify and develop the principles and strictures that best ensure safe and orderly growth in the domain of air navigation. These recommended principles and areas of focus include but are not limited to: flight inspection, prevention of unlawful interference, and facilitation of border-crossing procedures for international civil aviation. The International Civil Aviation Organization was founded in 1947. Its headquarters are located in Quebec, Canada.

Aircraft

An aircraft is a machine that has the capacity to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity either by using static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil. In a few cases, though, an aircraft counters the force of gravity with the help of the downard thrust from jet engines.

Lift (force)

A fluid flowing past the surface of a body exerts a force on it. Lift is the component of this force which is perpindicular to the flow coming from the opposite direction. In contrast, draft force is the component of the surface force that is actually parallel to the flow direction. if the fluid is air, the force is known as an aerodynamic force. In water, hydrodynamic force.
Lift is the force that's generated by propellers and wings to get an aircraft in the air and keep it there. Animals such as birds, bats and instects have exploited lift for millions and millions of years. The manmade flying machines are an extraction and application of many of the same laws and principles used by said animals.