UNIT II

NATURAL ENVIRONMENT
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter learning about
the Earth and its atmosphere.
The structure of landmasses and
oceans,
the consequent distribution of
human
habitation and human habits are
explored.

 The

Earth as a habitat
The planet Earth is a sphere roughly
1300 km in diameter and surrounded
by a
relatively thin gaseous layer,
the atmosphere .
The latter is comprised largely of
nitrogen and oxygen (four-fifths and
one-fifth respectively).

 It

orbits the sun completing one orbit each

calendar year.
This cycle affects many aspects of life and
peoples habits, and this turn affects the
demand for travel.
Earth s axis of rotation is inclined at 23.5
degrees to the plane of orbit ,regions of the
planets surface receive solar radiation at
different rates throughout year.
The year is defined into four seasons.
Earth rotates on its axis 365.25 times in a
year, making 365 days (each arbitrarily sub
divided into 24 hours) per calendar year,366
days every fourth (leap) year.

 The

seasons are characterised by

temperature variations, with summer the
hottest quarter of the year.
The Earths orbital inclination relative to the
sun causes summer to be in the middle of
the calendar year un the northern
hemisphere and at the changeover between
years in the southern hemisphere.
To define position on the Earths surface
geographers use an angle-based grid
system, a meridian is a line that extends
between the two locations around which
rotation takes place, which are the planets
natural poles (the North pole and the South
pole).

 Any

location on the Earths surface will

lie on a meridian, which is called a
longitude.
The reference meridian is the Greenwich
Meridian, which passes due north-south
through the district of Greenwich in East
London, UK.
Lines of longitude are defined as degrees
east and west of the Greenwich Meridian;
they meet at 180 degrees, almost in the
middle of the pacific Ocean.
Along most of its length this also serves
as the International Data Line.

 Perpendicular

to axis of rotation and

cutting through the globe halfway
between the North and South poles is the
equator.
Above and below this line ,any position
can be defined in terms of its angular
displacement, and is expressed as
latitude.
The equator is therefore is 0 degrees and
the North South poles are 90 degrees
south respectively.
In the region within 23.5 degrees of the
Earths equator the sun overhead at least
twice during year, which causes seasons
to be less obvious than at locations at
higher latitudes.

This band is called the tropics.

In the tropics the ambient temperature

usually warm, rainfall can be plentiful, but
seasonal (except in the center of continentalsized landmasses) and snow is almost
unknown (except at very high altitudes).

The aero plane has played a large part in the

last 100 years or so, its speed and ease of
use leading to accelerated rates of change in
demand and consequent expansion of travel
habits between population.

 It

is estimated that while the old

population grew from some 2.5 billion
in 1950 to 6 billion in 2000, it will
expand further, to around 9.25 billion
by 2050.

It

seems inevitable that the demand of

air travel will soar rather than recede,
which given astonishing growth
throughout the last 20th century will
pose some interesting problems.

The Earth: physical issues affecting

demand
Surface
The planets surface is the crust, and it
is that part of the Earth on which all
human activity takes place.
The surface into regions (tectonic plates)
that move, infinitesimally slowly, across
Earth surface, carried by the flow
patterns in the magma beneath the
crust.

 Where

plates meet, the surface ruptured

and pushed upwards, creating mountains,
and where they subdivided, which usually
in oceans, they are rifts, upon which
volcanoes will form.
They can also be volcanoes over regions
where two plates meet, especially if one
sub ducts beneath other.
These geological features defined shapes
of continents and effect fertility of land,
and often accessibility, and thus govern
how population disturbed over the Earths
landmasses.
Intrinsically all the land that is populated
is in the form islands, either large or
small.

 Between

the landmasses there is water. The

level of water varies diurnally, owing to
gravitational effects creating tides, and can
be referred to as mean sea level (MSL).
The accurate measurement of terrain height
as resulted in maps that express height
above the mean sea level (AMSL) worldwide.
Knowledge of relative height of terrain is
especially important in aviation, either
regard to being significant to operations
around airports or because in some parts of
the world landmasses rises high enough to
represent a significant en route hazard to
aviation operations

Core
The Earth comprises layers of material,
the properties of which are manifold but
which only a occasional impact of
aviation.
Examples are volcanic ash, which can be
hazard to aviation because of which its
abrasive and suffocating nature, and
earth quakes, which hardly welcome
anywhere.
The central part of the Earth comprises
molten rock that has a high proportion of
iron in its content, which responsible for a
strong magnetic field.

 Nautical

navigators used the magnetic

compass to guide the direction of
travel between times when they could
observe the sun or stars.
Aircraft navigation initially inherited
this discipline and the legacy where
the magnetic compass, simple as it is,
is still installed on all aircraft large or
small.

Magnetic compass with

deviation card

 Nowadays

the most accurate, and

globally reconcilable, position
references on the Earth (in terms of
north/south, east/west or vertical
positions) are those expressed as
World Geodetic System (WGS)
coordinates.

Continents
These are the largest landmasses and
have been the cradles for distinct
cultural divisions in humanity.
When the aero plane appeared it
brought the time taken to travel
anywhere in world down to an
insignificant proportion of a lifetime,
and led to an explosion in the demand
for travel.

 The

demand for air travel has grown rapidly,

the first significant levels of commercial
operations commencing only in the 1930s.
All indices that can be used to predict
demand suggest that there will continue to
be growth in air transport demand for many
decades into the future.
The industry needs too have a good idea of
what is likely to be in store, so developing
ways to forecast demand is essential.

The shape of demand

demand (passengers per unit of time )
there is for a service at the present time
is essential to planning the introduction
of transportation service.
The desire is to provide a service that
will continue to serve demand.
Thus some idea is desirable as to how
service demand will evolve over time.
This is traffic forecasting.

Traffic forecasters tend to divide the

worlds population into entities and to
assess what propensity there is to
travel between various clusters of
people.
One way to do this is so subdivide
them as national populations, within
some 200 countries.
Throughout the world there are some
2000 airports with daily scheduled
services that radiate from them and
the number grows annually.

Some 30,000 airfields and strips exit

worldwide, albeit the majority of these are
used by general and business aviation, whose
activities are distinct from those of airlines.
Airlines only operate between locations where
is sufficient demand for their services to be
warranted be that for passengers -cargo
Where there is a specific demand, such as for
holiday travel, the service might be provided
seasonally, and the operator of regular
timetable who sells seats through companies
will be a scheduled carrier .but may be a so
called inclusive-tour (I/T )operator.

Demand forecasting
Airlines

assess the possibility of a new

route and airports look into the possibilities
of what they should promote as new routes
by conducting traffic forecast studies.
Traffic forecasting attempts to predict the
demand on routes, usually by looking at
current situations that affect demand and
by considering their probable evolution
over the period of time of interest to them.

Comparative analysis
If

a situation with no historical data is

being studied, information regarding
similar circumstances between
airports at similar distances and with
similar local population interests, for
example can be adapted.

Imagine

that the demands on services

from a well established airport to
three particular destinations are
known.

 The

simplest deduction to make is that

ratio of demand to all three airports
from another airport in the same
country might be expected to related
to these services.
The relationship could be in terms of
the same ranking, and perhaps in
similar proportions.
The ground based infrastructure that
serves each of the airports.
Local geographic features

The

data can help to predict, if not

exactly what will happen, what
possibilities are likely to be evident
in the future.
The distribution of the population, in
social and cultural categories,
throughout the region around the
airports
Comparative data are therefore a
valuable source of comfort for a
forecaster.

The reliability of forecasts

Aviation

has greatly affected the

way that communities have
responded to travel opportunities,
largely through providing access
to more distant locations with
greater ease and reasonable cost.

The Earth: atmosphere

Aircraft need air on two accounts.
a. To generate the force that keeps
them aloft and
b. To provide oxygen that is burned
with fuel to liberate energy.

 Air

vehicles, because they do not have

contact with the surface of the Earth,
face less physical impediment than
any vehicles that travel on the surface.

They

should need less energy to

propel them at a given speed and
thus should be among the most
economical forms of travel.

Gaseous properties
The

qualities of a gaseous substance

such air can be expressed in terms of
temperature, pressure and density.
These are the three leading properties
of all gases.
Because pressure waves that propagate
through air are registered as sound and
the speed of sound has a significant
bearing on performance of aircraft.

mean atmosphere, the so called

international standard atmosphere
(ISA) is based on the premise that
there is a constant temperature lapse
rate (6.5 K/1.000m) sea level
(temperature=15 degrees C, or
288K)to the tropopause at 11000m
(36089 ft).
At this altitude and higher (which is in
the stratosphere), the temperature is
constant at -56.5 degrees C (216.5 K)

 The

region up to 11000 m altitude is

called troposphere, above this in the
regions used by commercial aircrafts
is the stratosphere and 11000m
(36089 ft) altitude is called
tropopause.
Jet powered commercial airlines prefer
to cruise in the regions close to
tropopause, while turboprop powered
airlines cruise at lower altitudes
perhaps down to 18000 ft on short
range operations.

Distance and speed

The

speed expressed in knots is the

same as stating the speed in nautical
mile per hour.
The nautical mile (naut. mile) is defied as
1 minute of arc on a line of longitude, so
1 degree of latitude (or 1 degree of
longitude at the equator only) is 60
nautical miles.
Most land based distances are
expressed in kilometers, or statute miles.

 Expressing

speed information is by
referring to the local speed of sound.
Speed of an aircraft as a proportion of
the speed of sound is referred to as
the Mach number.
Hence flying 458 knots at 45000ft,
where the local speed of sound is 573
knots the mach number is
(458/573)=0.80.This is to Mach 0.8
and is often written as M=0.80

Within the atmosphere

:Weather
The

atmosphere is not quiescent and the

changes that takes place within it give
rise to what can be grouped as weather.
The main contributor to these changes is
daily temperature variations across day
and night.
Moisture will form cloud even in still air
simply because, as the temperature falls,
if the air can no longer carry the water
vapour as humidity it must condense
into a cloud.

In

this case it creates a mist, and

when it happens at the Earths
surface it is fog.
This is the most lethal and
dangerous of all weather
phenomena commonly
encountered by aviators.

Weather effects on
navigation
Weather

effects determine how aircraft

are navigated.
The wind velocity triangle, so called
because it can be visualised as triangle
of vector quantities (in mathematics this
means that the quantity has length and
direction), allows visualisation of the
direction of flight the track) that an
aircraft will make good while it is
pointed in a different direction

 Take

an example. If an aircraft flies directly

north and the wind is either north or south, it
will generates tail wind or head wind,
respectively impending or carrying the aircraft
along its tracks.
In this case the aircraft is heading due north
and maintains a northly track.
A wind is express in terms of direction and
speed, and a wind from the north at 20 knots
is referred 000 degrees/20 knots.
A similar strength wind from the south is
referred to as 180 degrees/20 knots. The wind
heading uses 360 degrees reference used in
geometry and the direction of wind is where it
comes from.