Since the sad day that my camera left me, I've been unable to create new photos for this project. Instead of photos from an organization at UWM, I'm presenting previously published photos from a organization at my prior college, the University of Dubuque in Dubuque, Iowa.Every year, young aviation hot shots and professional pilot wannabes get together in Washington DC. Students are chosen a handful at a time from universities with aviation majors across the nation. In all, the week-long DC seminar has just around a hundred attendees. I was lucky enough to be one of the five students from the University of Dubuque to attend the conference in 2002 - the first one since the cancellation of the 2001 conference, which was scheduled for late September.
All students attending head to DC with ideas that stimulate or improve the aviation industry. We form groups to discuss our ideas and march around Washington DC talking to congress members and heavyweights in the FAA. At the end of the week, all groups presented their new idea to either the FAA or the NTSB with the hope that their proposed allowances, regulations, or laws will become a actual allowances, regulations, or laws.
This project required photo documentation for a blog as well, which was setup to promote the trip to other aviation students in following years. These are a few of the photos of DC that I included in my blog posting:
This is the particular group I secretly named "Team Dan." Our mission in Washington was to convince the FAA to allow airlines to hand down their recently increased taxes to the passenger, specifically the taxes related to the TSA's airport security.
Just over a year after the 11th of September, the Pentagon was business as usual. It was hard not to remember what had happened at this same place when a plane would fly overhead on it's way to DCA.
The tourist bait: the notorious gift shops featuring "official DC merchandise." If one store is out of something, you'll be able to find the exact same identical item (in the same colors) at the shop across the street, down the block, in the park, or anywhere else you can think to put a shop. DC is similar to Six Flags in that way.
While running around talking to senators and congressmen, it doesn't take long to bump into a CNN crew or two.
The law.
The man.
The monument.
Meet one of the only survivors of this plane crash. This particular cockpit recorder saved all the conversations that took place inside of the cockpit for the entire flight, right up until the end.
The flight data recorder saves information about what the plane is doing in flight. This allows researchers to recreate every mechanical event about the aircraft to determine the cause of a crash. The NTSB can read data about the flaps, ailerons, the vertical stabilizer, landing gear, lights, cabin pressure, oxygen masks, seatbelt lights, and any other recordable piece of information. The NTSB can simply plug this computer into a simulation computer to create virtual simulations with virtual people flying a virtual plane. Far out!
The accident investigation room is very secret, and this photo probably shouldn't have been taken. In this room, the NTSB, employers, or family members are the only ones allowed to put on headphones and listen to the cockpit recordings. No other person may listen to the recorded data, as strictly stipulated by the FAA. No employer may make take any disciplinary action to a crewmember based on information found on these recordings, even if a pilot was, for example, to be recorded discussing a three martini lunch and an after-work joint. The recordings are for accident investigation only, but never for the media.
Not very related to this project, but worth the photo anyway. This was 2002's first snow in DC. The photo is taken through my Holiday Inn hotel window, just a few blocks down from the capitol building.
Some of the many statues depicting heroes of Greek mythology that permanently stand downtown. But what's with the Boy Scout?
This photo's my favorite, because it's such a good representation of the city - a fusion of politics and an American ghetto. The city that runs the rest of the nation has the highest homicide rate of them all. Many of the forgotten neighborhoods are covered in graffiti, which uniquely blends gang signs and political expressions unlike anywhere else in this country.
posted by Fergison @ 6.5.06
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