Engineering Commons^™

Virtual Reality & Pilot Training: Existing Technologies, Challenges & Opportunities, Tim Marron M.S., Niall Dungan Bsc, Captain, Brian Mac Namee Phd, Anna Donnla O'Hagan Phd

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The introduction of virtual reality (VR) to flying training has recently gained much attention, with numerous VR companies, such as Loft Dynamics and VRpilot, looking to enhance the training process. Such a considerable change to how pilots are trained is a subject that warrants careful consideration. Examining the effect that VR has on learning in other areas gives us an idea of how VR can be suitably applied to flying training. Some of the benefits offered by VR include increased safety, decreased costs, and increased environmental sustainability. Nevertheless, some challenges ahead for developers to consider are negative transfer of learning, …

Training Methods Research Opportunities For A Pilot Workforce In Transition: A Literature Review, James Birdsong Phd, Kurt L. Reesman Phd

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Over the next 15 years, 50% of the U.S. commercial air carrier workforce will retire, making way for younger pilots from Generations Y and Z. This review identifies the emerging pilot workforce and training methods, including emerging technologies and learning methods, as well as research gaps.

Interpersonal Skills In A Sociotechnical System: A Training Gap In Flight Decks, Kimberly Perkins Atp, Fraes, Sourojit Ghosh, Crystal Hall Phd

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

This research analyzed the perceptions of interpersonal skills on established aviation safety models, Crew Resource Management (CRM), and Threat and Error Management (TEM) using feedback from industry pilots. The flight deck is a sociotechnical system where much research has focused on the technical aspect, whereas we spotlight its socio aspect. The aviation industry must invest in training pilots on interpersonal skills to enhance safety through increased efficacy of safety models integrated throughout existing training programs. A 34-question survey was disseminated across both commercial and business aviation pilots (N=822). We explored three research questions regarding pilots’ perceived training on interpersonal skills …

Assessing Past Airworthiness Directives And How Safety Management Systems May Benefit Aviation Product Design And Manufacturing, Damon Lercel Ph.D., Manoj Patankar Ph.D., Richard Steckel Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) continues to promulgate Safety Management Systems (SMS) across aviation organizations when it recently issued SMS requirements for EASA certificated Part 145 maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) organizations and Part 21 Design & Manufacturing (D&M) organizations. Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has no such rule in place for these U.S.-based organizations, which may challenge those doing business in countries where EASA policies apply. Given that a majority of the United States’ D&M and MRO population is made up of smaller organizations, it is likely a U.S. SMS regulation will require justification of the …

History’S Slowest Digital Transformation: The Long Road To Flight Data Monitoring, Michael Ott Msaam, Fraes, Atp

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Flight data monitoring (FDM) began in the flight test community in 1939 and entered the airline industry in 1974. In the 48 years since, however, very few operators have chosen to adopt this practice, which has shown clear safety benefits where it has found acceptance. While technical issues have created some obstacles, cultural issues have proven the greatest hindrance to wider FDM adoption. These cultural issues originated in the traits associated with pilots’ personalities, especially distrust of the regulators and operators who would administer flight data analysis programs (FDAP) that used FDM information. U.S. regulators have relied on voluntary adoption, …

Application Of Density Altitude Climatology To General Aviation Impacts, Thomas A. Guinn Ph.D., Daniel J. Halperin Ph.D., Sarah Strazzo Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Density altitude (DA) plays a key role in flight safety because it helps pilots anticipate poor aircraft performance when temperatures are warmer than standard. In this study, a 30-year climatology of DA for the conterminous United States was created using the fifth-generation European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts atmospheric reanalysis of the global climate (ERA5) dataset was applied to four separate DA-based, aircraft-performance, rules-of-thumb for general aviation (GA) flight. The goal was to demonstrate a technique to create educational visualization tools showing the variation of operational flight impacts with both month and location. Four such parameters were chosen to show …

Integrated Organizational Machine Learning For Aviation Flight Data, Michael J. Pritchard Ph.D., Austin T. Walden Ph.D., Paul J. Thomas Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Increased availability of data and computing power has allowed organizations to apply machine learning techniques to various fleet monitoring activities. Additionally, our ability to acquire aircraft data has increased due to the miniaturization of small form factor computing machines. Aircraft data collection processes contain many data features in the form of multivariate time series (continuous, discrete, categorical, etc.) which can be used to train machine learning models. Yet, three major challenges still face many flight organizations: 1) integration and automation of data collection frameworks, 2) data cleanup and preparation, and 3) developing an embedded machine learning framework. Data cleanup and …

Collegiate Aviation Students’ Perceptions Towards The Integration Of Diversity And Inclusion Training: A Qualitative Case Study, Jorge L. D. Albelo Ph.D., Nicola M. O'Toole M.S., Eugene Kim B.S.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Multiple industries have become more supportive and engaging places to work by embedding diversity, equity, and inclusion within their institutional processes. Institutions of higher education have seen the educational benefits of integrating diversity and inclusion principles within their program outcomes. Notably, the aviation industry has seen an increase in diversity, equity, and inclusion practices to attract more customers and increase the number of potential applicants. Yet, there is scant literature on how aviation students at collegiate flight institutions perceive the integration of diversity and inclusion training within the airline industry as part of their career development. This study aimed to …

Evaluating System Usability, Workload Suitability, And User Experience Of Game-Based Virtual Reality In Spaceflight Education And Training, Lana Laskey , M.S., Joseph R. Keebler , Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Game-based instruction and immersive virtual reality are enhanced pedagogical methods beneficial in training environments involving complex disciplines, ranging from medical applications to construction engineering technology. This study investigated the use of game-based virtual reality (GBVR) when applied to the complex field of spaceflight education and training. As modern society places increasing demand on space-based amenities, the need for proficient satellite operators will also increase, requiring more accessible and advanced training options. Satellite ground control training scenarios, immersed in the GBVR environment, were developed and deployed to university student participants. Multiple validated scales were employed to measure the GBVR system regarding …

Using Unmanned Aircraft Systems To Investigate The Detectability Of Burmese Pythons In South Florida, Joseph Cerreta Ph.D., William Austin Ed.D., David Thirtyacre Ph.D., Scott S. Burgess Ph.D., Peter Miller

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Burmese pythons are an invasive, non-native species of snake to southern Florida and attempts at eradicating the snakes had yielded mixed results. The current rate of detection had been reported as 0.05%. The purpose of this research project was to determine if a UAS equipped with a near-infrared (NIR) camera could be used to detect pythons at a higher rate when compared to a RGB camera. The approach involved collecting 55 images from RGB and NIR cameras, over carcass pythons at flying heights of 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 meters. A likelihood ratio consisting of a true positive rate …

Risk Assessment Matrix Of Operational Safety (Ramos): Aviation Safety With A Matlab® Design Toolkit, Haoruo Fu M.S., Chien-Tsung Lu Ph.D., Zhenglei Ji M.S.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Safety is the priority of the aviation industry that requires continuous support and improvement. While the Safety Management Systems (SMS) is mandatory for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) Part 121 air carriers and Part 139 airports in the United States, SMS remains optional to General Aviation (GA) due to various reasons including limited budget and manpower associated with technologies. This paper aims to promote the adoption of MATLAB^® to develop a low-cost Risk Assessment Matrix of Operational Safety (RAMOS) (risk calculation and control) for GA operators. A case is presented to demonstrate the application of …

A Deep Bilstm Machine Learning Method For Flight Delay Prediction Classification, Desmond B. Bisandu Phd, Irene Moulitsas Phd

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

This paper proposes a classification approach for flight delays using Bidirectional Long Short-Term Memory (BiLSTM) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) models. Flight delays are a major issue in the airline industry, causing inconvenience to passengers and financial losses to airlines. The BiLSTM and LSTM models, powerful deep learning techniques, have shown promising results in a classification task. In this study, we collected a dataset from the United States (US) Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) of flight on-time performance information and used it to train and test the BiLSTM and LSTM models. We set three criteria for selecting highly important features …

Safety In Flight Training - An Analysis Of The Ntsb Data 2014-2018, Michael F. Walach Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

There were 7,500 safety events in the NTSB data sets from 2013-2018. These events were analyzed using Chi-square, Cramer’s V, and the odds ratio. Major findings in the study determined that while pilots crash aircraft for the same reasons whether they are in a training environment or not, student pilots are typically less likely to be killed, or seriously injured. The aircraft that student pilots fly however, do not share the same relative safety in some event types. Students destroy and substantially damage more aircraft than their non-training counterparts in abnormal runway contact events. The top five causes of safety …

Systematic Review Of Safety Management Systems In The United States General Aviation, Kenneth J. Gilbert Ii, Mba, Atp

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

A safety management system may benefit General Aviation by increasing safety and reducing accident rates. This paper aims to systematically review the existing literature in targeted databases for gaps concerning general aviation safety management systems. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology provided the overall structure. Science Direct®, Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's Scholarly Commons, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) website were the three publicly available sources. Initial search criteria included PDF research articles (2006-2022), including the terms safety management system and general aviation. Additionally, keyword searches for the terms policy, promotion, risk management, …

Sms For Part 135 Commuter And On-Demand Operations - The Practitioner’S Perspective, Michael Ott Msaam, Fraes, Atp, Anthony P. Carufe Atp, Chien-Tsung Lu Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

On May 15th, 2017, N452DA, a Learjet 35A operated by Trans-Pacific Air Charter, LLC, departed from Philadelphia to Teterboro, New Jersey (TEB) on a positioning flight under 14 Code of Federal Regulations § 91 (Part 91) in Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC). While circling to land Runway 01 at TEB after executing the Instrument Landing System (ILS) Runway 06 approach, N452DA stalled and crashed one-half mile south of the approach end of runway 01. The flight records indicated that the crew committed numerous errors before the accident, including deviations from air traffic control (ATC) clearances, company standard operating procedures (SOP), and …

Applying Lessons From Safety-Ii Proof Of Concept In Line Operational Safety Audit To Aviation Maintenance, David R. Zubowski

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Maintenance safety culture is a topic that continues to arise. There is much information in many different literature sources that discusses measuring, analyzing, and scrutinizing data to determine if a safety culture exists in an organization and how to improve it. Currently, aviation maintenance personnel are surveyed for their opinions on how safe their culture is. However, this may not be an adequate reflection of the safety culture or help maintenance personnel conduct their jobs. Typically, they are operating in an environment that has a central determination of what safety culture is. Other programs in other fields have attempted a …

Investigation Of Pilots' Visual Entropy And Eye Fixations For Simulated Flights Consisted Of Multiple Take-Offs And Landings, Salem M. Naeeri Ph.D., Ziho Kang Ph.D., Ricardo Palma Fraga M.S.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Eye movement characteristics might provide insights on pilots' mental fatigue during prolonged flight. The visual entropy, eye fixation numbers, and eye fixation durations of ten novice pilots and ten expert pilots were analyzed for a four-hour simulated flight task consisting of four consecutive flight legs. Each flight leg lasted approximately one hour and contained five flight phases: takeoff, climb, cruise, descend, and landing. The pilots maneuvered the simulated B-52 aircraft following instrument flight rules (IFR) in a moderate-fidelity Microsoft Flight Simulator environment. Our results indicate that experts’ eye movement characteristics were significantly different from those of novices. In detail, novices' …

“You’Ll Never Really Be One Of Us”: Women’S Underrepresentation In The Aviation Workforce, Rebecca K. Lutte Ph.D., Shannon M. Morrison Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Women are underrepresented in many aviation occupations despite outreach and recruitment efforts from multiple organizations. Attracting women into aviation is a necessity not only to address workforce demand but also to achieve the benefits of a more diverse workforce to include enhanced profitability, safety, and innovation. To address the gender gap, the research presented here attempts to inform recruitment/retention strategies by identifying both the positive and negative factors that influence a woman’s decision to pursue a career in aviation and the decision to persist. Additionally, factors such as participation in youth outreach programs, role of mentors, influencers who support or …

Detectability Of Clothing Color By Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems For Search And Rescue Operations, Ryan Blackburn, Robert Joslin

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Search-and-rescue operations are adopting small unmanned aircraft system technology to aid traditional human search parties operating on foot or by vehicle, which can be hindered by challenging terrain and obstacles. This study utilized three camera equipped small unmanned aircraft to collect aerial images of a simulated human torso in a rural/remote desert summer daytime environment. The study compared detection rates for 10 different garment colors using image analysis software. Results indicated that garment color was statistically significant for detection rate. However, the garment colors with the highest detection rates did not correspond with the garment colors recommended by retail outlets, …

Integrating The First Person View And The Third Person View Using A Connected Vr-Mr System For Pilot Training, Chang-Geun Oh, Kwanghee Lee, Myunghoon Oh

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Virtual reality (VR)-based flight simulator provides pilots the enhanced reality from the first-person view. Mixed reality (MR) technology generates effective 3D graphics. The users who wear the MR headset can walk around the 3D graphics to see all its 360 degrees of vertical and horizontal aspects maintaining the consciousness of real space. A VR flight simulator and an MR application were connected to create the capability of both first-person view and third-person view for a comprehensive pilot training system. This system provided users the capability to monitor the aircraft progress along the planned path from the third-person view as well …

Interactive Modules For Flight Training: A Review, Stephanie G. Fussell Ph.D., Robert Thomas Ph.D.

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The use of animation and video, combined with auditory and text components, to teach complex subjects can be beneficial to deepen understanding. A review of the literature was conducted to better understand how interactive learning modules can give flight students tools to enhance the learning process outside of traditional instruction. Instructional theories and educational environments were considered through the lens of designing course content for flight students. Several research questions were asked to guide the course of the research, all focused on how students learn a complex subject matter using interactive material. Guidelines and principles are discussed to ensure the …

Testing And Validation Framework For Autonomous Aerial Vehicles, Mustafa I. Akbas

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Autonomous aerial vehicles (AAV) have the potential to have market disruptions for various industries such as ground delivery and aerial transportation. Hence, the USAF has called for increased level of autonomy. There has been a significant progress in artificial intelligence engines, complex and non-deterministic system components, which are at the core of the autonomous aerial platforms. Traditional testing and validation methods fall short of satisfying the requirement of testing such complex systems. Therefore, to achieve highly or fully autonomous capabilities, a major leap forward in the validation is required. The key challenges are the localization of problems, development of object …

Implementing Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning Into Advanced Qualification Programs, Jennifer R. Herr

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Since its start, the Advanced Qualification Program (AQP) has encouraged new and innovative strategies for training airline crewmembers. The foundation of AQP is to train crew the way they fly and to find new and innovative ways to increase safety through training. By using data collected through the AQP process, training methods can be refined and improved. New technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning can make data analysis and training more effective and efficient. This paper will explore these concepts and how AI and machine learning could be implemented in the AQP process to make training more …

Can Backward-Chained, Ab-Initio Pilot Training Decrease Time To First Solo?, Samuel M. Vance Ph.D., Kat Gardner-Vandy Ph.D., Jared Alan Freihoefer

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Flight simulation has made progressively significant inroads into pilot training at all levels of a pilot’s career – typically starting with training for the Instrument rating in light aircraft and concluding with Type Certification in transport category jetliners. This research was designed to explore if significant training inroads could also be offered to ab-initio pilots, those with no prior flight experience. An experimental group of four pilot trainees, without prior flight experience, were exposed to flight in a backwards-chained simulation starting from 4’ AGL (Above Ground Level). Graduated, exponential increments of both altitude and distance from landing were successively added …

Design, Construction And Testing Of A 3-Component Force Balance For Educational Wind Tunnels In Undergraduate Aerodynamics, Milan Tomin, Marco Scipioni, Benjamin Gatti

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

This article is focused on providing detailed instructions on how to build and use a force balance for educational wind tunnels. The article’s objective is to encourage undergraduate students in underfunded programs to engage in the field of aerodynamics. The discussed force balance represents an affordable device that only requires basic components like Arduino board, a servo motor, and acrylic and aluminum as construction materials. A simple data collection example is included at the end of the article showing that this simple force balance can collect meaningful data about lift, drag, and moment coefficient of a tested airfoil.

Configuration Management Challenges Of Model Based Systems Engineering On Multiple Variant Aircraft Fleets, David R. Zubowski

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) is moving from traditional Systems Engineering (SE), focusing on managing documentation, to Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), focusing on a system model (All Partners Access Network, n.d.). As NAVAIR transitions to an MBSE standard, controlling the Configuration Management (CM) of a fleet of a single series of aircraft in varying states of engineering change incorporations will be critical. Traditional systems engineering and configuration management are both text document focused disciplines that have existed since the end of World War II. The method chosen to conduct the research was by performing a case study on MBSE …

Scenario-Based Strategic Planning For Future Civil Vertical Take-Off And Landing (Vtol) Transport, Woojin Choi, Steven Hampton

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Rapid evolvement of the vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) technology in conjunction with recent robust R&D has demonstrated the technical feasibility of the civil VTOL system as a short-haul mass transit mode. Its combined benefits of a helicopter and a turboprop into one aircraft is expected to become an effective remedy for congested air traffic and difficulties with airport expansions in the metropolitan areas along with the potential benefit to improve accessibility to population centers and remote areas where conventional aircraft cannot access.

In this study, based on a the Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental, and Legal (PESTEL) factors and …

Public Acceptance Of Ai Technology In Self-Flying Aircraft, Sarah M. Talley

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

The research article includes a literature dissection on the topics of public acceptance of automated vehicles, including self-driving cars and unmanned aerial vehicles. Information reviewed will be applied to the potential future application of self-flying aircraft. The use of the Technology Acceptance Model is reviewed for application of public acceptance studies. Contributing factors commonly observed include perceived ease of use, perceived usefulness, perceived risk and environmental benefits. Additionally, trust in automated technology for decision-making is reviewed. Research is based on existing studies of public acceptance in similar technologies and is applied to the likely public acceptance of self-flying aircraft.

A Proposed Taxonomy For General Aviation Pilot Weather Education And Training, John M. Lanicci, Thomas A. Guinn, Jayde M. King, Beth Blickensderfer, Robert Thomas, Yolanda Ortiz

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

As General Aviation (GA) safety continues to remain a focus of the aviation community, GA pilot weather education and training continues to be an active area of interest within the research community. This study introduces a taxonomy for organizing GA pilot weather education and training materials that was originally conceived as part of the FAA’s Weather Technology In the Cockpit research program. The taxonomy is built upon three main knowledge categories, or tiers:1) Weather Phenomena (which includes hazards); 2) Weather Hazard Products; and 3) Weather Hazard Product Sources and their Application. The concept behind the categorization is to link knowledge …

Dynamic Delegated Corridors And 4d Required Navigation Performance For Urban Air Mobility (Uam) Airspace Integration, Trong Van Nguyen

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Increased traffic congestion on urban road networks has impacted the travel time for commuters in highly populated urban centers. Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is recognized as a system that transports the passenger and air cargo from any location to any destination within a metropolitan area. UAM may offer a solution to the problematic issue of automobile urban surface transportation congestion. However, the predicted significant growth in the demand for integration of UAM operations into the existing airspace system in the next 20 years and beyond may exceed the capacity of current air traffic control (ATC) system resources, particularly the ATC …