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Today's Air Traffic Report:

Thunderstorms could slow traffic in parts of the Midwest, including Chicago (MDW, ORD) and Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP). Wind will be a factor in delays at New York area airports (EWR, JFK, LGA). Clouds and high winds may result in delays at San Francisco (SFO).

Pilots: Check out the new Graphical Forecasts for Aviation (GFA) Tool from the Aviation Weather Center.

For up-to-the-minute air traffic operations information, visit fly.faa.gov, and follow @FAANews on Twitter for the latest news and Air Traffic Alerts.

The FAA Air Traffic Report provides a reasonable expectation of any daily impactsto normal air traffic operations, i.e. arrival/departure delays, ground stoppages, airport closures. This information is for air traffic operations planning purposes and is reliable as weather forecasts and other factors beyond our ability to control.

Always check with your air carrier for flight-specific delay information.

June 23- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the general aviation (GA) communitys national #FlySafe campaign is designed to educate GA pilots about the best practices to calculate and predict aircraft performance and to operate within established aircraft limitations.

What is Loss of Control (LOC)?
An LOC accident involves an unintended departure of an aircraft from controlled flight. LOC can happen when the aircraft enters a flight regime that is outside its normal flight envelope and quickly develops into a stall or spin. It can introduce an element of surprise for the pilot.

Expect the Unexpected
Fatal aviation accidents often result from a pilots inappropriate response to an unexpected event. Some pilots may experience a startle response when faced with an unexpected situation or freeze or panic during an emergency. These events can quickly create a situation that is stressful, challenging, and even life-threatening, especially during flight.

Any unexpected inflight event requires fast, accurate action. Your best insurance is to have a plan. Solid training, regular practice, and your discipline to strive for perfection on every flight will help you survive.

Training and practice can help you diagnose developing problems, such as:

• Partial or full loss of power on takeoff
• Landing gear extension or retraction failure
• Bird strike
• A cabin door opening on take-off, landing, or mid-flight
• A control problem
• A control failure

How would you respond to each of these problems? What would be your plan of action?

You need to carefully visualize, think through, and plan how you would address each of these issues as well as any others that may be relevant to your operation. Talk with your flight instructor, and take time to plan and train for your response. For example, your instructor can help you practice your reaction to a primary or multi-function flight display failure. He or she can also throw other possibilities your way, including electrical failures, landing gear extension failures, and more. If you sign up for the WINGS pilot proficiency program, you can even have those training hours count toward a phase of WINGS!

You can also experience these failures on your flight simulator software on your home computer or personal electronic device. Some of these programs will allow you to set up random failures during a flight. If you dont have access to a simulator, try sitting in your airplane (or your favorite chair) to practice drills andhelp you develop a pre-planned course of action and test your mastery of your abnormal and emergency checklists.

These drills have serious benefits:

• You will rehearse sudden and subtle failures, and have the opportunity to practice overcoming your natural defenses (this cant be happening to me) and rationalization (I dont think this is as bad as it sounds).
• Youll get to know your aircrafts systems, including how they work, how they fail, and how those failures can affect other systems or controls.
• You will brush up on your single pilot crew resource management skills. By having a strong situational awareness of the aircraft and its flight path and the range of resources that are there to help you, including air traffic control, youll be able to reach out for assistance quickly.

Plan, rehearse, repeat. These simple exercises can save your life.

Message from FAA Administrator Michael P. Huerta:
The FAA and industry are working together to prevent Loss of Control (LOC) accidents and save lives. You can help make a difference by joining our #Fly Safe campaign. Every month on FAA.gov, we provide pilots with Loss of Control solutions developed by a team of experts some of which are already reducing risk. I hope you will join us in this effort and spread the word. Follow #FlySafe on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I know that we can reduce these accidents by working together as a community.

More about Loss of Control
Contributing factors may include:

• Poor judgment or aeronautical decision making
• Failure to recognize an aerodynamic stall or spin and execute corrective action
• Intentional failure to comply with regulations
• Failure to maintain airspeed
• Failure to follow procedure
• Pilot inexperience and proficiency
• Use of prohibited or over-the-counter drugs, illegal drugs, or alcohol

Did you know?

• In 2015, 384 people died in 238 general aviation accidents.
• Loss of Control was the number one cause of these accidents.
• Loss of Control happens in all phases of flight.It can happen anywhere and at any time.
• There is one fatal accident involving Loss of Control every four days.

Learn more:
Learn more about maintaining and regaining control in Ch 4 of the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook.

This FAA Fact Sheet will give you tips on overcoming Startle Response.

Learn more about Managing the Unexpected in this FAA Fact Sheet.

FAA TV is now playing! This Surprise, Surprise video has good recovery tips.

This NTSB Safety Alert has lessons learned information that can be critical to your safety.

TheFAASafety.govwebsite has Notices, FAAST Blasts, online courses, webinars and more on key general aviation safety topics.

Check out GA Safety Enhancements fact sheets on the mainFAA Safety Briefingwebsite, including Flight Risk Assessment Tools.

TheWINGS Pilot Proficiency Programhelps pilots build an educational curriculum suitable for their unique flight requirements. It is based on the premise that pilots who maintain currency and proficiency in the basics of flight will enjoy a safer and more stress-free flying experience.

TheGeneral Aviation Joint Steering Committee (GAJSC)is comprised of government and industry experts who work together to use data to identify risk, pinpoint trends through root cause analysis, and develop safety strategies to reduce the risk of GA accidents. The GAJSC combines the expertise of many key decision makers in the FAA, several government agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and stakeholder groups. Industry participants include the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, Experimental Aircraft Association, General Aviation Manufacturers Association, Light Aircraft Manufacturers Association, National Business Aviation Association, National Air Transportation Association, National Association of Flight Instructors, Society of Aviation and Flight Educators, and the aviation insurance industry. The National Transportation Safety Board and the European Aviation Safety Agency participate as observers.

Amplify the news on Twitter and Facebook using #FlySafe.

June 22- Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Huerta is encouraging travelers to Fly Smart this summer.

As we head into summer, Im asking air travelers to keep safety in mind as they pack their bags and during their flights, said FAA Administrator Huerta. Fly Smart and be prepared. Your actions can save your life and those around you.

Flying has become so safe that many travelers take it for granted. Over the course of several decades, government and industry worked together to significantly reduce the risk of accidents and to improve airplane design, maintenance, training, and procedures. But emergencies can still happen.

Travelers can give themselves an extra margin of safety by taking a few minutes to follow these guidelines:

• In the unlikely event that you need to evacuate, leave your bags and personal items behind. Your luggage is not worth your life. All passengers are expected to evacuate the airplane within 90 seconds. You do not have time to grab your luggage or personal items. Opening an overhead compartment will delay the evacuation and will put the lives of everyone around you at risk.
• Pack safe and leave hazardous materials at home. Many common items such as lithium batteries, lighters, and aerosols may be dangerous when transported by air. Vibrations, static electricity, and temperature and pressure variations can cause hazardous materials to leak, generate toxic fumes, start a fire, or even explode. Check the FAAs Pack Safe website for the rules on carrying these items. When in doubt, leave it out.
• If you are travelling with e-cigarettes or vaping devices, keep these devices and spare batteries with you in the aircraft cabinthey are prohibited in checked baggage. These devices may not be used or charged onboard aircraft.
• If you have any other spare batteries, pack them only in your carry-on baggage and use a few measures to keep them from short circuiting: keep the batteries in their original packaging, tape over the electrical connections with any adhesive, non-metallic tape, or place each battery in its own individual plastic bag. You cannot fly with damaged or recalled batteries.
• Do not pack or carry any type of fireworks. This includes firecrackers, poppers, sparklers, bottle rockets, roman candles, etc. No matter where you are, fireworks are always illegal in airline baggage.
• Prevent in-flight injuries by following your airlines carry-on bag restrictions.
• For your safety, follow crew instructions. Its a Federal law.
• Use your electronic device only when the crew says its safe to do so.
• Flight attendants perform important safety duties and are trained on how to respond to emergencies. It just takes a few minutes to pay attention to the flight attendant during the safety briefing, read the safety briefing card, and follow the instructions. It could save your life in an emergency.
• Buckle up. Wear a seatbelt at all times. It could help you avoid serious injury in the event of unexpected inflight turbulence.
• Protect young children by providing them with a child safety seat or device. Your arms cannot hold onto a child during turbulence or an emergency. An FAA video shows how to install a child safety seat on an airplane.

Fly Smart this summer and learn more at FAA.gov/passengers. Watch this one-minute video of FAA Administrator Huerta discussing traveler safety.

June 21- Whose drone is that? Its a critical question for law enforcement and homeland security when an unmanned aircraft (UAS) appears to be flying in an unsafe manner or where its not supposed to fly.

Currently, there are no established requirements or voluntary standards for electrically broadcasting information to identify an unmanned aircraft while its in the air. To help protect the public and the National Airspace System from these rogue drones, the FAA is setting up a new Aviation Rulemaking Committee that will help the agency create standards for remotely identifying and tracking unmanned aircraft during operations. The rulemaking committee will hold its first meeting June 21-23 in Washington, DC.

The groups membership represents a diverse variety of stakeholders, including the unmanned aircraft industry, the aviation community and industry member organizations, manufacturers, researchers, and standards groups. The rulemaking committee will have several major tasks to:

• Identify, categorize and recommend available and emerging technologies for the remote identification and tracking of UAS.
• Identify requirements for meeting the security and public safety needs of law enforcement, homeland defense, and national security communities for remote identification and tracking.
• Evaluate the feasibility and affordability of the available technical solutions, and determine how well they address the needs of law enforcement and air traffic control communities.

Eventually the recommendations it produces could help pave the way for drone flights over people and beyond visual line of sight.