Engineering Commons^™

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, …

High-Flying Results: A Case Study In A Pilot Development Mentor Program, Catherine G. Cordova Phd, Barron Parsons-Daisley Captain, Emma Fox Captain

Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research

Consistently considered one of the world’s most stressful occupations, the job of an airline pilot requires increasingly specific skills and responsibilities, especially amidst the global pandemic (Cullen, et al., 2020; Sew, et al., 2022). Given the severity and implications of their decisions and actions, airline pilots must continuously undergo training and practices to ensure proper procedure. In 2020, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) augmented qualifications by enacting Pilot Professional Development requirements (85 FR 10923), including mentoring for newly hired pilots in command (PIC’s). In complement with 85 FR 10923, CFR 121-N ensures “techniques for reinforcing the highest standards of technical …

Evaluating The Efficacy Of Virtual Reality (Vr) Training Devices For Pilot Training, Ryan Guthridge, Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Virtual Reality (VR) technology is a quickly advancing field that has many documented benefits, including highly detailed environments, accuracy to the real world, and low cost of entry in the flight simulation market. At the time of this study, VR technology has not been well tested or widely accepted in the aviation industry. In this mixed methods study, quantitative and qualitative data was collected on beginning-level instrument pilots (n = 120) while performing a visual traffic pattern at an airport. A one-way ANOVA was used to evaluate the equivalence of each group in the study based on previous flight and …

A Comparison Of Airport Risks: Unmanned Aircraft Systems (Uas) Sightings, Wildlife Strikes, And Runway Incursions, Cheng Wang, Sarah M. Hubbard

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

To provide a context for the potential threat of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) sightings on airport operations, this paper compares the characteristics of UAS sightings with two common airport threats: wildlife strikes and runway incursions. This study analyzed over 60,000 events in a three-year period (September 2016 to August 2019), including 6,551 UAS sightings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) UAS Sightings Report database, 47,574 wildlife strikes from the FAA Wildlife Strike database, and 6,041 runway incursions from the FAA Runway Safety database. The results suggest both similarities and differences among the airport threats. Both UAS sightings and wildlife strikes …

Flight Testing Gls Approaches Enabled By Wide Area Corrections In Kerkyra, Greece, Thomas Dautermann, Thomas Ludwig

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Many airports with a high value to commercial air traffic have spatial or budgetary constraints which prevent the installation of a precision approach system. We previously designed a low-cost precision approach system which combines the advantages of both ground-based and satellite-based augmentation systems by using a converter between them in order to allow GAST-A approach types. We installed, operated, and flight-tested such a system at Kerkyra Airport using an A320 aircraft. During these, we recorded data from a commercial multimode receiver as well as GPS raw data in order to prove the feasibility of the system. Data were analyzed using …

Airport Ground Access Choice Between Transportation Network Companies And Parking: A Case Study Of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Sen Wang, Yichen Zheng, Yi Gao

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The segment between home and airports is an essential component in all air transportation trips. Travelers normally have different ground access options to commence their journeys. Using Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport as a special case, this study proposes a theoretical framework for quantifying and comparing the overall cost of driving and parking at airport and the use of Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) ridesharing services such as Uber. Based on the cost comparison, we design an interactive web application to visualize the utility advantage area and summarize the corresponding demographic information. Our study has the potential to benefit airports, TNC operators, …

Faa Designated Pilot Examiner System Insights, Wendy Beckman, Michael Gref, Timothy Rosser

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

As part of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Reauthorization Act of 2018 the FAA was required by Congress to review Designated Pilot Examiner (DPE) policies and procedures. This task was delegated to the Designated Pilot Examiner Reforms Working Group (DPERWG). This Group delivered its recommendations to the FAA in June 2021, and this research study was conducted in late January of 2022 to attempt to provide additional insights to the agency prior to its required response to the DPERWG in June of 2022.

This research project aimed to provide perceptions of the current DPE system from both DPEs and flight …

Enhancing Trajectory-Based Operations For Uavs Through Hexagonal Grid Indexing: A Step Towards 4d Integration Of Utm And Atm, Deepudev Sahadevan Neelakandan, Hannah Al Ali

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Aviation is expected to face a surge in the number of manned aircraft and drones in the coming years, making it necessary to integrate Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) into Air Traffic Management (ATM) to ensure safe and efficient operations. This research proposes a novel hexagonal grid-based 4D trajectory representation framework for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) traffic management that overcomes the limitations of existing square/cubic trajectory representation methods. The proposed model employs a hierarchical indexing structure using hexagonal cells, enabling efficient ground based strategic conflict detection and conflict free 4D trajectory planning. Additionally, the use of Hexagonal Discrete Global …

Ads-B Communication Interference In Air Traffic Management, George Ray

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Automated Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) provides position and state information about aircraft and is becoming an essential component in the global air traffic management system. ADS-B transponders broadcast this key information on a common frequency to both other aircraft and to secondary surveillance radar systems located at ground stations. Both the aircraft transponders and the ground stations work together to assist in managing the commercial airspace. Since the aircraft transponders all broadcast on the same frequency and are in close proximity there is an apparent risk of interference and the garbling of the communications needed to manage the airspace.

The …

Single Pilot Operations And Public Acceptance: A Mixed Methods Study Conducted In Greece, Panagiotis Kioulepoglou, Ilias Makris

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The airline industry is moving towards Single Pilot Operations (SPO), as a result of the increased training and salary cost of pilots, and also as a remedy to the impending pilot shortage which is estimated to manifest itself in the years to follow. The main objective of this study was to explore whether the Greek public is willing to accept only one pilot onboard, what are the factors that affect this decision, and which is the preferred method of replacing the second pilot by choosing between an array of alternative options proposed by the industry.

Based on the qualitative findings …

Learning From Past In The Commercial Air Transport Industry: A Bibliometric Analysis And Systematic Literature Review In The Safety Management Framework, Alok Tyagi, Rajesh Tripathi Dr, Soufiane Bouarfa Dr

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

In the commercial air transport industry, numerous accidents have occurred because stakeholders have failed to learn lessons from the past. The reactive hazard identification (HI) methodology in the current regulatory safety management framework provides a fresh opportunity to negotiate the challenges of the air transportation sector's predicted growth and societal safety expectations. In the regulatory framework, ‘learning from the past’ is related to the reactive method of HI, and it is viewed as a data-driven decision-making process in this review. This literature review aims to investigate academic literature on ‘learning from the past’ in the aviation industry to comprehend an …

Stochastic Optimization To Reduce Aircraft Taxi-In Time At Igia, New Delhi, Rajib Das, Saileswar Ghosh, Rajendra Desai, Pijus Kanti Bhuin, Stuti Agarwal

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Since there is an uncertainty in the arrival times of flights, pre-scheduled allocation of runways and stands and the subsequent first-come-first-served treatment results in a sub-optimal allocation of runways and stands, this is the prime reason for the unusual delays in taxi-in times at IGIA, New Delhi.

We simulated the arrival pattern of aircraft and utilized stochastic optimization to arrive at the best runway-stands allocation for a day. Optimization is done using a GRG Non-Linear algorithm in the Frontline Systems Analytic Solver platform. We applied this model to eight representative scenarios of two different days. Our results show that without …

Business Process Architecture For The Integration Of Artificial Intelligence At Aerospace Organizations, Andrew Walker

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Artificial intelligence's capability is rapidly increasing, and the aerospace industry must capitalize on this computing revolution. The current study conducts an integrative literature review to identify current and potential AI applications beneficial to the aerospace industry. It utilizes the findings to develop a new high-level business process architecture integrating AI in the workplace. Business process elements are extracted from the literature using logical reasoning to modify a baseline architecture model. The new model is developed to allow the integration of artificial intelligence from a holistic perspective, at the more general level of employee interaction and at the more narrow level …

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 …

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, …

Modeling Airport Catchment Areas: Using Spatial Analysis Approach, Sitong Chen

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Th e airport catchment area is the geographic area from which an airport can reasonably expect to draw commercial air service passengers. Th e purpose of this interdisciplinary research is to estimate airport catchment areas using a spatial analysis method for informed airport management. In order to ensure the comprehensiveness and reliability of the research, we chose to analyze the catchment areas for five airports of different sizes and in different geographic locations in the United States. The Huff model, which is usually used in marketing, economics, and retail research, was adopted in this study. We applied this model in …

The Impact Of Passenger Characteristics On Use Of Self-Service Technologies For Check-In Process: A Case Study Of Sydney Airport, Sarika Tyagi, Gabriel Lodewijks

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Due to the severe global competition in the aviation industry, airports give top priority to passenger services. Therefore, a study of characteristics associated with passenger services is one of the most important measurements in the aviation industry. The objective of this study was to analyze the impact of passenger characteristics on the use of self-service technology (SST) for the check-in process at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport. A survey was conducted online amid the COVID-19 pandemic for data collection. Based on the collected responses, this study analyzed the sociological and demographic characteristics of the passengers and situational factors related to characteristics …

Scheduling Aircraft Departures To Avoid Enroute Congestion, Johannes Martinez

Scholarly Horizons: University of Minnesota, Morris Undergraduate Journal

When scheduled flights are forecast to overcrowd sections of enroute airspace, an air traffic control authority may need to delay departures. Mixed integer linear programming can be used to compute a schedule that resolves the congestion while bringing the sum of all delays to a minimum. Standard linear programming constraint formulations for such scheduling problems, however, have poor run times for instances of realistic size. A new constraint formulation based on cycles and paths through a route graph reduces run times in computational experiments. It shows particularly strong performance for schedules that approach the worst-case solution times in standard formulations.

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 …

Characteristics Of Unmanned Aircraft System (Uas) Sightings And Airport Safety, Cheng Wang, Sarah M. Hubbard

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

This paper presents the characteristics of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) sightings and discusses these characteristics in the context of airport safety using airport operational data. An unmanned aircraft in the vicinity of a commercial airport may be a potential threat to aircraft operations, and may result in operational and economic impacts if it causes an airport delay or shutdown. To ensure a record of UAS activity, the Federal Aviation Administration collects and publishes a UAS Sightings Report. This study analyzed UAS sightings and found that they vary by time of year and time of day, with more sightings in the …

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 …

Space Cargo: Ultra-Fast Delivery On Earth –Potential Of Using Suborbital Space Vehicles For The Transportation Of Cargo, Robert O. Walton, Robert A. Goehlich

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

No abstract provided.

Classifıcation Of Survivor/Non-Survivor Passengers In Fatal Aviation Accidents: A Machine Learning Approach, Tüzün Tolga İnan Dr.

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The safety concept primarily examines the most fatal (resulting in dead passengers) accidents of aviation history in this study. The primary causes of most fatal accidents are; human, technical, and sabotage/terrorism factors. Although the aviation industry started with the first engine flight in 1903, the safety concept has been examined since the 1950s. The safety concept firstly examined the technical factors, and in the late 1970s, human factors started to analyze. Despite these primary causes, there have different factors that affect accidents. So, the study aims to determine the affecting factors of the most fatal accidents to classify the survivor/non-survivor …

Aviation Organization Strategy Development In National Airspace Modernization, Allan Will, Samuel M. Vance

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine how small sub-directorates within larger organizations develop strategy to accomplish expansive legacy infrastructure re-engineering. There is significant, historical academic inquiry on Technological Transitions (TT)s with respect to infrastructure modernization; the conversion of the National Airspace System from ground-based to space-based navigation is an example of a TT. There are also studies on how to re-engineer legacy software systems to continue supporting organizational needs. This study is intended to explore a case of re-engineering the expansive legacy ground-based navigation system in the United States by efficiently reducing the size of the network …

Integrated Risk Assessment In Ramp Handling Operations: Risk Mapping For Turkish Airports, Ebru Yazgan, Vildan Durmaz, Ayşe Küçük Yılmaz, Konstantinos N. Malagas

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Ramp handling acts a vital role in sustainable airport operations. The ramp related services provided to aircraft and their passengers at the airports are related to the landing, take-off, unloading and loading of the aircraft. Human resource is a key component in ramp handling operation and errors by employees cause significant accidents or incidents. The main purpose of the current study is to prioritize critical risk factors in ramp handling operations by using an integrated risk management approach and optimizing human performance while minimizing both failures and errors by employees. In this study, an integrated qualitative and quantitative risk assessment …

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 …

Fatigue And Its Management In The Aviation Industry, With Special Reference To Pilots, Rajee Olaganathan, Timothy B. Holt, Jackie Luedtke, Brent D. Bowen

Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering

Abstract Fatigue is a significant contributing factor that reduces human ability and leads to accidents and threatens the safety of aircraft and human lives. Approximately 70% of fatal accidents that occur in commercial aviation operations are due to human factors. More specifically, crew fatigue contributes to nearly 15 to 20% of the accidents (Akerstedt, 2000). These accidents and incidents are associated with pilot fatigue because of the long duty periods, disruption of circadian rhythms, and inadequate sleep that are common among both commercial and military pilots. Though fatigue is seen in all the disciplines associated with the aviation industry, this …

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 …