Royal Aviation Association

Royal Aviation Association

Background

Founded by the Minister for Transportation, the association is a regulator for the airship industry for all private, commercial, and government services. The association established the Aviation Code of Conduct act to establish crucial standardised fundamentals regarding airship crew responsibilities, docking procedures, signalling guidelines, navigation requirements, and piloting procedure.

Code of Conduct

Crew

All airship crews must consist of a captain, a pilot, and a navigator. Although captains are often known for assuming the position of pilot, in the rare case a pilot is also qualified as a navigator, both responsibilities of the airship must be undertaken simultaneously in a variety of situations.

Captain's Responsibilities

Captains are responsible for all actions of the crew whilst on-board their airship and ensuring the airship is compliant with all Imperial and regional aviation regulations. They are within their rights to supervise and discipline their subordinates according to civil law and bare full responsibility for any breaches in regulation in relation to crew members or with the vessel.

Pilot's Responsibilities

Pilots are directly responsible for the airship’s course, reading of crucial instruments, and engine control, either relayed to and from other members of the crew or directly accessible from the airship’s point of control.

Navigator's Responsibilities

Navigators are one of the most crucial crew members of the airship and require years of training in charting, geographical studies, signalling, and code translation. Navigators are responsible for plotting and instructing the pilot in keeping to a predefined course and utilising their knowledge of winds and geographical locations for sudden deviations, emergencies, and avoiding hostile combatants. They also hold key responsibilities in signalling to ground crews, other vessels, and authorities although this role is usually dispatched to another crew member who is instructed by the navigator.

Signalling

Signalling takes the form of a directed light mirrored beacon with a shutter mechanism and uses the “Terman codex” for translating differing lengths of light pulses to and from their respective alphabetic representations. The system is known by all mandatory crew members both on the ground and in an airship. This means captains, pilots, navigators, dock stewards, and signalling crew should all know how to send and receive messages using the Terman code.

Ground Crew Contact

While in communication with ground crews of airdocks, navigators must first make contact using their ship’s ID, or name and class. After the dock acknowledges the contact by responding with the dock ID followed by the initial contact ship identification, the airship may make a request. This request commonly takes the form of DOCK, REFUEL, CARGO, or PASSENGERS although additional messages may be sent to describe the request further. Once the request is sent, the dock will respond with the ship ID and the response to the request, commonly HOLD (holding pattern until further instructions), ABORT (cannot allow request), or PROCEED (request can be undertaken immediately). Again the response can be followed with additional detail such as HOLD and expected waiting time, or ABORT - dock is closed.

Captain's Signalling Responsibilities

In addition to these common signalling systems, codes can often be used by chartered vessels or large cargo ships to gain access to pre authorised docking areas and services. These codes are secured in a monthly code book held by a navigator with a specific code to be used at a designated time of day and date. For additional security, some navigators also memorise an additional confirmation code to accompany their code book code. The IIC is known for this practise and to hire navigators with exceptional memory ability such that they would not need a code book at all.

Intervessel Signalling

Signalling to other vessels is also important for indicating a direction to an oncoming vessel. The instant another vessel is sighted within reasonable visual range, contact is attempted. The instigating ship states their name and class and waits for an acknowledgement. The responding ship will return this with the initial ship’s name and class, followed by its own and direction. The instigating ship would then follow this with their direction and if in conflict with their own, instruct the responding ship to change course to either port or starboard reducing a risk of a head on collision by similar course adjustments. If the ship is of a military or government class and is the responding ship, they will wait for the instigating ship to reveal its course and then respond with its own recommendations to the instigating ship regarding course adjustment. The instigating ship should always permit higher class ships to be granted right of way and will not provide recommendations in their second contact.

Maintenance

Luffzich Gas Synthesizers

While sailing an airship, Luffzich Gas (LZ-G) synthesizers must always be maintained and checked regularly, particularly for long haul flight times. Many crews have been lost through the years due to poor synthesizer maintenance, commonly leading to a rapid loss of gas pressure and subsequently altitude. Synthesizers problems can often be located and resolved before any noticeable pressure differences occur. If a synthesizer is not able to be repaired, gas levels would always be sufficient enough to permit an emergency landing according to the navigator and captain’s instructions.