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On the 13th of October, a group of members and non members attended the Wales North LN Annual Safety Lecture which was held at Glyndwr Optic. This year, our speaker was Ron Pierce a Safety Consultant who gave a fascinating talk about "Air Collision Avoidance Systems". This started with the first air collision in 1922, developments in World War 2, use of VHF Radio, the hazard rating scale used by Air Traffic Controllers before moving on to modern communications systems. We heard about TCAS operating principles, audible alerts in the cockpit plus many other features. There are, at any one time, five million people flying in passenger aircraft and we were all reassured about the safety of this for of transport. We are very grateful to Ron and judging by the depth and quality of the questions, our attendees were very impressed. 
  • I found that this lecture explained the concept and principles of TCAS so that it could be understood by engineers and other technical professionals that do not specialise in Functional Safety - which Mr Pierce had covered in his lecture here last November. I also appreciated Mr Pierce's description of the history of air collision avoidance techniques leading up to TCAS as this provided a useful context.