Engineering Commons^™

Fight For Flight: The Narratives Of Human Versus Machine Following Two Aviation Tragedies, Andrew Prahl, Rio Kin Ho Leung, Alicia Ning Shan Chua

Human-Machine Communication

This study provides insight into the relationship between human and machine in the professional aviation community following the 737 MAX accidents. Content analysis was conducted on a discussion forum for professional pilots to identify the major topics emerging in discussion of the accidents. A subsequent narrative analysis reveals dominant arguments of human versus machine as zero-sum, surrender to machines, and an epidemic of mistrust. Results are discussed in the context of current issues in human-machine communication, and we discuss what other quickly automating industries can learn from aviation’s experience.

Society Dilemma Of Computer Technology Management In Today's World, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Abstract - Is it true that some of the inhabitants of the world’s today are still hesitant in using computers? Research has shown that today many people are still against the use of computers. Computer technology management can be said to be obliterated by security problems. Research shows that some people in society feel reluctant or afraid to use computers because of errors and exposure of their privacy and their sophistication, which sometimes are caused by computer hackers and malfunction of the computers. The dilemma of not utilizing computer technology at all or, to its utmost, by certain people in …

Qualitative Findings From The Practice Of Outsourcing By The Aviation Technical Services Industry In Northern Europe: Comparison With Literature, Jukka Holkeri

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

The outsourcing of maintenance and other technical services is a trend in both military and civil aviation. This article uses input from real outsourcing cases in Northern Europe to verify previous literature findings and to introduce new viewpoints to fill an identified research gap.

Interviews of deeply involved individuals from six cases were selected and analyzed using the Delphi method. The findings were synthesized using a framework that articulates contexts, observed outcomes, and generative mechanisms.

Many of the key literature findings were verified by this case analysis, but there were also some contradictions and new observations that had not been …

The Effects Of 5g Implementation On The Aspects Of Sustainability In The Air Transportation Industry, Leila Halawi, Douglas Ashlock, Lucy Elias, Hannah Puchkoris, Anthony Williams

Publications

The concern of 5G C-band frequency interference with global aviation operations was founded on the criticality of a single-point failure with the radio altimeter operations. The research in this report intends to highlight the severe impact of 5G C-band implementation on the air transportation industry. It focuses on one airport in the United States, Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (SEA), one of the busiest airports in the country, flying both domestically and internationally. The results show that Boeing aircraft are affected more than Airbus for 5G interference. Further, the findings show that the United States should align its 5G implementation with other …

Impact Of Covid-19 On Aviation-Wildlife Strikes Across Europe, Isabel C. Metz, Marta Giordano, Dionysios Ntampakis, Marianna Moira, Anneke Hamann, Rosanne Blijleven, Jürgen J. Ebert, Alessandro Montemaggiori

Human–Wildlife Interactions

Collisions between aircraft and wildlife (i.e., wildlife strikes) pose a serious threat toward the safety of aircraft, its crew, and passengers. The effects of COVID-19 related travel restrictions on wildlife strikes are unknown. With this study, we aim to address this information gap by assessing the changes of wildlife hazard management performance across European airports during the lockdown period (e.g., period of reduced operations and borders closure in spring 2020). We also sought to raise awareness of the importance of wildlife strike prevention in times of reduced operations. The objective of our study was to compare wildlife strike data before …

Air Passenger Demand Forecast Through The Use Of Artificial Neural Network Algorithms, Juan Gerardo Muros Anguita, Oscar Díaz Olariaga

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Airport planning depends to a large extent on the levels of activity that are anticipated. In order to plan facilities and infrastructures of an airport system and to be able to satisfy future needs, it is essential to predict the level and distribution of demand. This document presents a short- and medium-term forecast of the demand for air passengers carried out through a specific case study (Colombia), in which the impact of the pandemic period due to COVID-19 on air traffic was taken into account. To make the forecast, an algorithm that implements techniques based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) …

Air Passenger Demand Forecast Through The Use Of Artificial Neural Network Algorithms, Juan Gerardo Muros Anguita, Oscar Díaz Olariaga

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Airport planning depends to a large extent on the levels of activity that are anticipated. To plan the facilities and infrastructures of an airport system and to be able to satisfy future needs, it is essential to predict the level and distribution of demand. This document presents a short- and medium-term forecast of the demand for air passengers carried out through a specific case study (Colombia), in which the impact of the pandemic period due to COVID-19 on air traffic was taken into account. To make the forecast, an algorithm that implements techniques based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) (Machine …

Ground To Air Testing Of A Fused Optical-Radar Aircraft Detection And Tracking System, Chester V. Dolph, Thomas Lombaerts, Evan Kawamura, Corey Ippolito, Vahram Stepanyan, Khan M. Iftekharuddin, George Szatkowski, Robert G. Mcswain, Chris Morris, Mahyar R. Malekpour

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Onboard detection and tracking capability are integral to the sensing component in collision avoidance systems needed to safely operate autonomous urban air taxis and small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. Ground-based validation of detection and tracking systems is an important milestone towards the end goal of real-time collision avoidance using onboard sensors and algorithms. In this work, we evaluate three Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) based fusion trackers with radar and vision detection inputs, and compare them with baseline trackers for each sensor type. Performance is assessed using field collected data of ground to air test flights with the sensors co-located on a …

A Ranking Method To Prioritize Vfr Airports To Be Provided Instrument Approach Procedures, Marcelo Soares Leão, Fábio Rodrigues Paukoski Fernandes, Gustavo Ortegal Leal, Leila Halawi

Publications

The primary purpose of this work is to investigate the necessity of a more comprehensive and systematic method to prioritize airports to be provided with instrument approaches and landing procedures in the Brazilian air transportation landscape. First, an overview of the main contributors to risks associated with the approach and landing phases is provided, covering the most critical aspects of unstable approaches and controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) events. Second, considering the emergence of Terrain Awareness and Alerting Systems (TAWS), the role of its contribution to safety is discussed and the certification context related to the design, installation, and operation …

Trends Of Non-Fatal Hems Accident-Related Injuries, Richard J. Simonson, Joseph R. Keebler, Alex Chaparro

Publications

We conducted an investigation into non-fatal helicopter emergency medical service accidents from January 26, 1991 to April 26, 2018 via the National Transportation Safety Board aviation accident database. Over this 28-year timeframe 247 accidents results in 251 fatalities and 179 non-fatal injuries. Exploratory analysis of the data indicate that more non-fatal injuries occurred in September compared to any other month during the study timeframe. Exploratory correlational analysis via elastic net logistic regression concluded that no linear relationship of NTSB accident database data provide insights into what factors are correlated with an increased likelihood of non-fatal injuries. Further, no linear relationships …

Modernization Of Scienttific Mathematics Formula In Technology, Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D, Prof. Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

Department of Mathematics: Faculty Publications

Abstract
Is it true that we solve problem using techniques in form of formula? Mathematical formulas can be derived through thinking of a problem or situation. Research has shown that we can create formulas by applying theoretical, technical, and applied knowledge. The knowledge derives from brainstorming and actual experience can be represented by formulas. It is intended that this research article is geared by an audience of average knowledge level of solving mathematics and scientific intricacies. This work details an introductory level of simple, at times complex problems in a mathematical epidermis and computability and solvability in a Computer Science. …

Women And Bipoc In Aerospace: Where Did They Come From And How Did They Get Here?, Tracy L. Yother, Anne M. Lucietto, Geanie Umberger, Mary E. Johnson

School of Engineering Education Faculty Publications

The low number of women and black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) compared to their population, is well-documented in engineering, engineering technology, and other STEM fields. Through this and ancillary documentation there is agreement that increasing the numbers of women and other minorities in these areas will enhance productivity and the breadth of new innovation. Many efforts have been made to increase the number of women and BIPOC in STEM fields. The result of those efforts has been disappointing as they have resulted in minimal growth in engineering and virtual stagnation in other areas of STEM. The aviation and …

The Importance Of Strategic Communication For Building Employee Resource Groups In Aviation, Lynnette Darnell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

In this qualitative case study, the research explores the importance of strategic communication for building employee resource groups in aviation, specifically at a regional airline. To expand and develop knowledge regarding employee resource groups, the researcher looks at a widely distributed workforce to understand how the lack of strategically planned communication can impact employee resource group development and employee engagement. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews and a focus group of the employee resource group members, which provided insight on their experience engaging with the employee resource groups, preferred communication methods and tools, and their perception of leadership involvement. …

Mindfulness Workshop For Airline Pilots, Eric Miller

Mindfulness Studies Theses

The science on mindfulness as it relates specifically to aviation is sparse. It has only been in recent years that mindfulness has been examined as it relates to aviation. That being the case, this paper draws connections from areas that are already well studied with mindfulness; stress, anxiety, attention, and communication. Evidence exists that even short duration mindfulness interventions can have positive effects on mindfulness. The one-day workshop created with this thesis gives pilots a cursory overview of mindfulness as it relates to various areas of commercial aviation. Furthermore, the workshop will teach pilots how these different mindfulness techniques can …

Flying Wing Uav For Surveillance And Object Tracking, Kristen Padgett, Scott Semmelink, Jared Lasley, Paul Horne

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) have become ubiquitous in recent years due to their adaptability and ease of use. Surveillance UAVs in particular have seen increased interest and usage by law enforcement, civilian security, surveying, and federal services. The increased interest has led to the development of UAVs with increased endurance and payload capacity. Further as many of the applications of surveillance drones involve heightened security requirements, an aircraft of domestic make is preferential to many organizations. With this demand in mind, Inspired Products, LLC put forth a request for assistance in the design and testing of a surveillance UAV. More …

Human Fatigue Predictions In Complex Aviation Crew Operational Impact Conditions, Suresh Rangan

Doctoral Dissertations

In this last decade, several regulatory frameworks across the world in all modes of transportation had brought fatigue and its risk management in operations to the forefront. Of all transportation modes air travel has been the safest means of transportation. Still as part of continuous improvement efforts, regulators are insisting the operators to adopt strong fatigue science and its foundational principles to reinforce safety risk assessment and management. Fatigue risk management is a data driven system that finds a realistic balance between safety and productivity in an organization. This work discusses the effects of mathematical modeling of fatigue and its …

Air Navigation And Covid-19: Atm Efficiency In Pandemic Crisis, Fabio Lourenco Carneiro Barbosa

Graduate Student Works

The coronavirus crisis effects on aviation in 2020 are currently well-documented. Nonetheless, the widely registered low traffic due to the crisis does not necessarily lead to increased air navigation efficiency. Thus, the present work, developed to fulfill the program outcomes for the Master of Science in Aeronautics, Air Traffic Management (ATM) specialization, aimed to investigate what was the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on air navigation efficiency in Brazil. This research question was addressed through a quantitative, nonexperimental, observational approach with two parallel branches, designed to answer two sub-questions. For the first, regarding what was the impact of the crisis …

Advancing Christ: Understanding How Foreign Cultures Respond To Missionary Aviation, Aidan Van Pelt

Senior Honors Theses

After World War II, missionary aviation became a profound influence on the world of missions. The impacts of missionary aviation culture on the spread of the Gospel in foreign locations will be investigated to better understand how it influences Christianity. The effect of expediting the travel-time to remote locations is apparent, but missionary pilots have several other influences as well, such as, community development, education and discipling locals. These various cultural aspects will be explored by first defining the culture, discussing the history of missiological responses and the origin of missionary aviation, and then examining the effects of missionary aviation …

The Impact Of Uas On The Passenger Airline Industry, Matthew Whitten

Senior Honors Theses

This study seeks to cover the state of modern autonomous unmanned aerial systems (UAS) integration into commercial aviation, the future applications of the technology in the airline industry, and the roadblocks currently hindering its integration into passenger operations. Although great advancements are being made in the field, technological developments, economic impact, legal restrictions, airline cost, and public perception stand in the way of the full adaptation of autonomous technology into everyday passenger operations. However, technology is rapidly developing, perhaps allowing for the possibility of autonomous air travel even today, but there are likely years of refinement before regulators, executives, and …

The Integral Of Education Technology In The Society, Prof. Iwasan D. Kejawa Ed.D

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Abstract

Are there ways people can better utilize technology to suit their needs in the society of ours? It has been inferred that without technology, our lives would be miserable. The societal factors of using technology are an important area of the technical education system in the world. Are we really learning and using technologies to our advantage? Does technology provide the necessary ingredients or proper ways for the education of all in the society? A look into what constitutes the means and how technology education can be improved and be implemented is explored and emphasized in this work. The …

In Their Own Words: Forgotten Women Pilots Of Early Aviation, Fred Erisman

Purdue Studies in Aeronautics and Astronautics

Amelia Earhart’s prominence in American aviation during the 1930s obscures a crucial point: she was but one of a closely knit community of women pilots. Although the women were well known in the profession and widely publicized in the press at the time, they are largely overlooked today. Like Earhart, they wrote extensively about aviation and women’s causes, producing an absorbing record of the life of women fliers during the emergence and peak of the Golden Age of Aviation (1925–1940). Earhart and her contemporaries, however, were only the most recent in a long line of women pilots whose activities reached …

Optimization Of A Customized Leadership Development Program Upskilling English Language Fluency In Brazil Aviation Leaders, Robin A. Roberts

Publications

Objective: The present study explored how a customized leadership development program (LDP) with coursework taught in English to non-native English speakers could optimize English language fluency in Brazil airline leaders.

Background: Currently, problems exist with a myriad of native language accents and phraseology interfering with cognitive reflexes especially for aircrews and air traffic controllers to safely do their work. Executives from four Brazilian airlines proactively implemented a 14-month LDP focused on English language fluency and leadership enhancements collectively for leaders within their firms.

Method: Blended learning as proposed by the International Civil Aviation Organization provided the experiential …

A Comparison Of The Effectiveness And Integration Capability Of Personal Aerial Vehicles (Pav) Into The Existing Transportation Network Of The City Of Los Angeles, Alec Perkins

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Traffic demands on the current infrastructure network is becoming more strained as populations migrate and increase, particularly in large cities. Therefore, city officials, transportation and traffic authorities and researchers, and city inhabitants themselves are always striving to find faster and more efficient means of transportation. With the rise of new technologies such as autonomous vehicles and drones, the applications for transportation are endless. Therefore, this paper will describe and explore the operations, and consequently the efficacy, of Personal Aerial Vehicles (PAV), also known as Urban Air Mobility (UAM). The machines, while still hypothetical, are being researched extensively by some of …

Methodology For Convergence Of The Training Program With The Professional Activities Of Aviation Specialists, Zair Ziyaevich Shamsiev

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The method of developing curricula for training aviation specialists for civil aviation of the Republic of Uzbekistan is analyzed. It is substantiated that it does not sufficiently take into account the labor market requirements for the composition and content of academic disciplines. An overview of foreign experience in bridging the gap between educational programs and the workplace is given. A method based on a statistical analysis of civil aviation regulations is recommended.

Digitalization Of Educational And Methodological Support For The Training Of Aviation Dispatchers, Zair Ziyaevich Shamsiev

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The tasks of improving the educational process of training civil aviation dispatchers on the basis of the development and implementation of digital teaching aids are considered. Legislative and regulatory documents are accepted as an object of digitalization. The end result of the research is expressed in the provision of the educational process with a special electronic educational complex, which has the functions of providing the necessary information and conducting practical exercises to deepen, consolidate and control knowledge in the field of aviation documents.

Aviation Culture: A ‘Glass Sky’ For Women Pilots - Literature Review, Ivana Gorlin, Donna Bridges

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

This paper reports on a review of literature covering gender issues in aviation. It considers the impacts of aviation culture on women pilots. The focus of the review was on empirical studies over a 25-year period (1996-2020). Two research questions underpin the review; firstly, we investigated how aviation culture impacts women pilots’ experiences, secondly, we considered its effect on women as pilots. Using a hermeneutic methodological framework, we found that cultural attitudes towards women pilots in the aviation industry are biased and discriminatory. The studies in the review overwhelming concur that the hegemonic masculine culture that dominates aviation significantly diminishes …

Leveraging Aircraft Transponder Signals For Measuring Aircraft Fleet Mix At Non-Towered Airports, Chuyang Yang, John Mott, Darcy M. Bullock

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The general aviation sector has contributed significantly to the overall growth of the aviation industry. Fleet mix and operations information is important for the analysis of both the safety and the environmental and economic impact of general aviation activity. Factual data on the impact of environment and safety is particularly important, given the scarcity of airport improvement funds and the strong stakeholder engagement that often occurs when airport investments are evaluated. The research presented herein evaluates Mode S short and extended squitter data collected from three general aviation airports over a one-month period. This article demonstrates that by utilizing the …

Racial Diversity In Aviation, Lindsay Stevenson, Haydee M. Cuevas, Katie S. Kirkpatrick

Student Works

Commercial aviation has grown rapidly since the 1950s yet racial diversity in the aviation workforce has showed little progress. To explore this issue, this archival study was conducted to examine the representation of Black individuals in aviation occupations and other specialized professions from 2009 to 2018. Data were obtained from the American Community Survey using Public Use Microdata Sample from the United States Census Bureau. The frequency count and percent were calculated each year for each occupation by race (White or Black). Five aviation occupations were selected for comparison: aircraft pilot and flight engineer; air traffic controller and airfield operations …

Emergency Landing And Guidance System, Joseph Alarid

Master's Theses

Every year there are thousands of aviation accidents along with hundreds of human deaths that happen around the world. While the data is sparse, it is well documented that many of these happen from emergency landings gone awry. While pilots can generally make great landings in clear daytime conditions, they are significantly handicapped when it comes to landing at night or amongst poor visibility conditions.

Due to the nature of this problem and some of the large scale advances in software technology we propose a solution that provides a significant improvement from the status quo. Using transfer learning on neural …

Women In Aviation: A Phenomenological Study Exploring The Needs And Wants Necessary For Graduation, Eugene Kim, Jorge L. D. Albelo

Student Works

Despite the increased awareness of gender and race equality movements, today's population of minority women in aviation is still underrepresented. This research focused on underrepresented minority women who want to pursue a career in the aviation field and what factors affect their level of success in a specialized aviation higher education institution. There is not enough data and research surrounding the topic of minority women in aviation and their paths to success in these institutions. This qualitative research aimed to bridge the existing gap in the literature related to minority women in aviation and their needs and wants to complete …