Engineering Commons^™

The Effect Of Cockpit Noise On Aircraft Pilot Psychomotor Performance, Kelechi (Kc) Nwabeke

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of cockpit noise on aircraft pilot psychomotor performance on a simulated tracking task. The performance of thirty-two participants was measured on a vertical and horizontal tracking task. In the control group, eight participants were used in a quiet condition. In the experimental group, eight participants were exposed to low intensity cockpit noise (50 dBA), eight participants were exposed to medium intensity cockpit noise (60 dBA) and eight participants were expose to high intensity cockpit noise (70 dBA). The performance of the control and experimental groups was measured in an advanced …

Transitory Forecasting Methodology: Passenger/Revenue Share And Capacity Share (The S-Curve), Marlene Marie Dugan

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this descriptive study was to explore the relationship between a carrier's service/capacity share and passenger share to determine the presence of the s-curve. The author is unaware of a current, accepted analysis for understanding the s-curve with any degree of reliability. Regression analysis was used to correlate service/capacity share against passenger share for domestic, United States air carriers. Carrier ranking was then added as a predicting variable to gain further insight into the correlation between service share and passenger share. It is anticipated that this study will be beneficial to airline network planners in their analysis of …

Air Cargo As A Different Business Unit, Juan M. Gomez

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

By combining cargo and passenger operations under the same business, airlines are facing an operational conflict with respect to the cargo operation, which has always been perceived as a by-product and not as an essential revenue generating activity; This fact leads to poor product quality, weak revenues, and value deterioration. By dedicating time and resources to the cargo operation in a different business unit with a defined strategy, carriers may increase cargo profitability and achieve superior operational results.

The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the benefits for passenger airlines to invest in air-cargo operations by defining …

The Role Of Eeg Biofeedback Training Preceding An Automated Monitoring Task, Matthew Bernd Hilscher

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Discussions are taking place in aviation circles to revamp and revolutionize air traffic management under the term "free-flight". The plans for a new system would incorporate, to a high degree, automation technologies that may have important human factors implications. One such concern speaks to quality of mental involvement as authority roles change. This modification of cerebral involvement may have an effect on performance during critical system failures. The purpose of this research has been to investigate whether specialized EEG biofeedback training might have an ameliorating effect on reducing the vigilance decrement. Partial support was found that evidences utility to this …

Enhancing Commercial Aircraft Survivability Via Active Venting, Roger L. Veldman

Dissertations

A new technique for enhancing aircraft safety in the event of an on-board explosion was studied. The method under study employs deployable vent panels located on the fuselage which are activated by an array of pressure sensors in the aircraft interior. In the event that an explosion is detected, appropriate vent panels are rapidly released from the aircraft. This approach seeks to provide timely relief of explosive pressures within an aircraft to prevent catastrophic structural failure.

In this study, the approximate time scale of an explosive detonation and the subsequent sensing and electronic processing was determined. Then, the actuation response …

The Effect Of Improving The Logistics Pipeline On Supply Support Of Aerospace Expeditionary Forces, Steven L. Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

One of the biggest considerations for an Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF), in terms of cost and airlift requirement, is the use of aircraft spares kits to support combat operations. To date, these kits are built on the assumption that there would be no resupply for the first 30 days of a contingency. However, with more efficient transportation and information resources available today, it seems logical that resupply would occur much more quickly. If so, the Air Force should be able to trim its wartime stocks of aircraft spares. This thesis investigated the effect of improving the logistics pipeline on the …

Estimating C-17 Operating And Support Costs: Development Of A System Dynamics Model, Christopher D. Purvis

Theses and Dissertations

This research provides justification for experimenting with system dynamics (SD) for performing Operation and Support Cost estimates. For the C-17 Globemaster III cargo aircraft, these costs could exceed $64 billion dollars. Also, many of our weapon systems are beginning to reach the end of their effective life span, and discussions about the impact of aging, on aircraft, has become a hot topic in the literature. System Dynamics is a modeling methodology developed in 1958, but never used extensively for cost estimating. SD offers unique capabilities to the cost estimator, including the ability to model causal relationships. This capability offers the …

Identification Of Critical Roles Of Program Managers And Contracting Officers, Daniel R. Shingledecker

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to identify current disagreement among acquisition professionals in regards to their role and authority; and to identify benefits and risks associated with combining program management and contracting officer roles into a single position. The research questions were answered through a literature review and use of the Delphi technique. The literature review indicated that the DoD has been operating with multiple conflicting perceptions of authority among its key acquisition professionals. The literature also identified the need for complex organizations, such as DoD acquisition offices, to pair high levels of responsibility with equally high levels of …

Aircraft Maintenance Performance: The Effects Of The Functional Decentralization Of On-Equipment Maintenance, Mark A. Commenator

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force has implemented various aircraft maintenance organizational structures. The implementation of the Objective Wing in the early 1990s was the latest occurrence of reorganization. This research looks at the effect of the type of aircraft maintenance organizational structure on aircraft maintenance performance. The type of organizational structure was defined by the functional centralization of the on-equipment maintenance. Aircraft maintenance performance was measured using TNMCM rates, fix rates, repeat/recur rates, man-hours per flying hour, and scheduling effectiveness rates. Three F-15 wings and three F-16 wings were selected to compare the changes in aircraft maintenance performance and to determine if …

Requirements-Based Methodology For Determining Age Inventory Levels, James A. Mackenna

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to illuminate crucial areas in analyzing AGE needs on an operational flightllne and assist in determination of AGE inventory levels. Further refinements could result in more objective and accurate assessments of actual flightline AGE needs and associated risks involved with reduction of AGE inventory levels. The research in this thesis consists of a discrete event simulation to determine desired AGE inventory level through an analysis of aircraft launches and wait time for AGE support by varying AGE (mean time between failure) MTBF and AGE inventory. Stochastic inputs for aircraft failures, AGE delivery times, and …

A Methodology For Simulating The Joint Strike Fighter's Prognostics And Health Management System, Michael E. Malley

Theses and Dissertations

The Autonomic Logistics System Simulation (ALSim) model was developed to provide decision makers a tool to make informed decisions regarding the Joint Strike Fighter's (JSF) Autonomic Logistics System (ALS). The ALS provides real-time maintenance information to ground maintenance crews, supply depots, and air planners to efficiently manage the availability of JSF aircraft. This thesis effort focuses on developing a methodology to model the Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) component of ALS. The PHM component of JSF monitors the aircraft status. To develop a PHM methodology to use in ALSim a neural network approach is used. Notional JSF prognostic signals were …

Pilot Mental Workload Calibration, Jeremy B. Noel

Theses and Dissertations

Predicting high pilot mental workload is important to the U.S. Air Force because lives and aircraft can be lost when errors are made during periods of mental overload and task saturation. Current research efforts use psychophysiological measures such as electroencephalography, cardiac, ocular, and respiration measures in an attempt to identify and predict mental workload levels. The primary focus of this effort is the development of a calibration scheme that allows a small subset of salient psychophysiological features developed using actual flight data for one pilot on a given day to accurately classify pilot mental workload for a separate pilot on …

Gulfstream Aerospace Aircraft Static Position Utility, Mark Eugene Ray

Legacy ETDs

My research project implements a Java based utility developed for commercial application by Gulfstream Aerospace employees and customers to determine static position data of Gulfstream aircraft. The static position data includes aircraft attitude, nose and main landing gear loads and aircraft ground clearance data.

The previous methods used to obtain this data were a family of spreadsheets. The spreadsheet solution has proven to be awkward and inaccessible for providing the required data. Therefore, Gulfstream Aerospace Management approved the design and implementation of a new aircraft static position utility.

The new utility is identified as the Gulfstream Aircraft Static Position (GASP) …