Week 1: First Research Steps

Welcome once more!

My Senior Project progress this week has been less than ideal, unfortunately, but that by itself can be a learning experience. I reached out to a possible connection for an internship and looked into George Mason’s Center for Air Transportation Systems Research (CATSR), which does research very closely related to the research I will do for my Senior Project.

Though my efforts this week were divided into an array of non-Senior Project related tasks, I did focus some time on researching the tactics that air traffic controllers use for planning routes. This information will greatly assist me in determining the various variables influencing a flight’s trajectory when approaching the Northern Polar Jetstream.

I also delved deep into the specifics and mechanics of the Boeing 777-200 this week. I believe it is vital to know the various details of the aircraft I am studying, as this may also have implications for flight paths and flight times.

My goals for the following weeks involve applying myself directly and fully to my research, and I believe the first step to achieving a comprehensive research experience is understanding the tools I will be using to compile my data. In my case, I will be setting up a spreadsheet to hold the flight data that I will be running statistical analysis on.