Aviation Commons^™

A Day In The Life Of A Float Plane Charter Pilot, Bryan Cox

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Ever taken a float plane trip or wanted to? Learn what it’s like to be a float plane pilot doing charter work in the Puget Sound area of Washington state. Hear this light-heated, informal, presentation by someone who has done all this for “fun and profit”!

The Taiwan Civil Aviation Safety Reporting (Tacare) System In Aircraft Maintenance: An Evaluation Of The Acceptance Of Voluntary Incident Reporting Programs For Maintenance Personnel In Taiwan, Yi-Fan (Tom) Chen

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this research was to examine the effectiveness of the Taiwan Civil Aviation safety reporting (TACARE) system for maintenance personnel to improve aircraft safety. The research evaluated what are the issues that affect the participation of the TACARE system. The understandings of the safety culture for maintenance personnel in Taiwan were also analyzed. The research was conducted with a mixed method. The survey and interview were developed to sample the acceptance and opinions regarding the TACARE system for the maintenance personnel in Taiwan. Statistical analysis of the data from 605 survey respondents and 9 interviewees concluded the maintenance …

Nonlinear Observers For Human-In-The-Loop Control Systems, Samuel Kitchen Mckinley

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The development of models for a human-in-the-loop with hardware is an area of ongoing research. The ability to simulate a human-in-the-loop with hardware provides a platform for better understanding the dynamics of human and machine cognition. A human-in-the-loop model provides information that can be used to design more efficient human interfaces and smarter autonomous assistant controllers. This can make a complex task such as flying an aircraft safer and more accessible. This thesis explores different possibilities for human operator models to be modeled in the loop with a vehicle. A human is modeled as a linear state feedback controller in …

Redesigning Airport Diagrams With Principles Of Cognitive Psychology, Jacob Miller

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The aviation community strives for air travel to be the safest form of transportation. The National Transportation Safety Board published a “Most Wanted” list to acknowledge the most threatening safety issues, and runway safety and runway incursions were at the top of their list. Furthermore, runway incursion statistics by the Federal Aviation Administration show that pilot deviations were the most common cause for runways incursions. Misunderstandings of airport diagrams may be one reason for pilot deviations. While navigating through airport taxiways, pilots refer to their airport diagrams as a map of the airport. Unfortunately, airport diagrams are not designed with …

Will Very Light Jets Replace King Air Turboprops For Business Travel?, Vince Jean-Paul Pujalte

Applied Aviation Sciences - Prescott

The purpose of this research was to determine if Very Light Jets (VLJs) such as the Eclipse 500 might replace the Beechcraft King Air Turboprop as the preferred aircraft for short regional flights. There are often significant distances from the location of a given company to the nearest customer. Traveling these distances requires travel time, significant funding, and inconvenience. The research method utilized developed and distributed a survey to present owners of Beechcraft King Air Turboprops used for regional business travel. After careful analysis of the data, the researcher concluded that the present owners of King Air Turboprops were very …

Spot Off: The Gao Takes On The Tsa’S Behavior Detection Program, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently Issued Efforts to Validate TSA’s Passenger Screening Behavior Detection Program Underway, but Opportunities Exist to Strengthen Validation and Address Operational Problems (May 2010, GAO-10-763). This IBPP article will describe and comment on the main GAO findings and additional data on which the findings are based. The article will end with some basic challenges to behavior detection as a useful security measure.

Effect Of Time Pressure And Task Uncertainty On Human Operator Performance And Workload For Autonomous Aerial Vehicle Missions, Trevor Petersen

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are being utilized at an increasing rate for a number of military applications. The potential for their use in the national airspace is also of interest to the Federal Aviation Administration, but there are some concerns about the safety of flying unmanned aircraft. The role of a UAS operator differs from that of a pilot in a manned aircraft, and this new role creates a need for a shift in interface and task design in order to take advantage of the full potential of these systems. This study examined the effect of time pressure and task …

A Historical Look At The Av-8 Harrier Program, Bill O'Hara

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Hear the inside story of one of the most controversial airplanes ever introduced to Naval Aviation, as told by a Marine pilot with more than 3,000 hours in the Harrier. Bill (Prof) O’Hara, was also the real pilot in the movie “True Lies” with Arnold Schwarzenegger!

The New Aviation Meteorology Specialization In The Graduate Aeronautics Program At Embry-Riddle, John M. Lanicci, Erin A. Roberts

School of Graduate Studies - Daytona Beach

The next 12 months will be an exciting time of growth in graduate aviation studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach, FL campus. Beginning in Fall Semester 2009, a new Area of Concentration (AOC) in Aviation Meteorology will be added to the Master of Science in Aeronautics (MSA) program, and the new Doctoral program in Aviation will be starting in January 2010. The Aviation Meteorology AOC adds a crucial specialty to the existing MSA options in Air Traffic Management, Aviation/Aerospace Education Technology, Aviation/Aerospace Management, Aviation/Aerospace Operations, and Aviation/Aerospace Safety Systems.

The Aviation Meteorology AOC is designed to be a cross-disciplinary …

Hardware Certification For Real-Time Safety-Critical Systems: State Of The Art, Andrew J. Kornecki, Janusz Zalewski

Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Daytona Beach

This paper discusses issues related to the RTCA document DO-254 Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware and its consequences for hardware certification. In particular, problems related to circuits’ compliance with DO-254 in avionics and other industries are considered. Extensive literature review of the subject is given, including current views on and experiences of chip manufacturers and EDA industry with qualification of hardware design tools, including formal approaches to hardware verification. Some results of the authors’ own study on tool qualification are presented.

Airport Bird Hazard Management, Flavio A. C. Mendonca Ph.D.

Publications

Aircraft collisions with birds, also commonly referred to as bird strikes, annually cost the commercial aviation industry in Brazil at least $6 million in direct damage and associated costs and hundreds of hours of aircraft down time. Although the economic costs of wildlife strikes are extreme, the cost in human lives lost when aircraft accidents occur as a result of strikes best illustrates the need for management of the wildlife strike problem. Bird strikes have been an increasing problem for the aviation industry. Air travel has become widespread all over the world. The aircraft has played an important role not …

Change Blindness In The Synthetic Vision Primary Flight Display: Comparing Eye Tracking Patterns With Pilot Attention, Stephen A. Mayo

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

There have been a number of important advances in aviation technology that have made the safety rating of flying the best that it has ever been. One of the most important advances made has been in the interface that the pilot relies on for their most critical information during flight. New aviation displays have empirically shown a wide range of improvements across pilot performance. Despite these improvements, there is still a high possibility that pilots may miss pertinent information that changes may occur simultaneously with some sort of distraction - a concept known as change blindness. This study analyzed how …

The Effect Of Pilot And Air Traffic Control Experiences & Automation Management Strategies On Uas Mission Task Performance, Christopher J. Reynolds

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Unmanned aircraft are relied on now more than ever to save lives and support the troops in the recent Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. The demands for UAS capabilities are rapidly increasing in the civilian sector. However, UAS operations will not be carried out in the NAS until safety concerns are alleviated. Among these concerns is determining the appropriate level of automation in conjunction with a suitable pilot who exhibits the necessary knowledge, skills, and abilities to safely operate these systems.

This research examined two levels of automation: Management by Consent (MBC) and Management by Exception (MBE). User …

Flight Regime And Maneuver Recognition For Complex Maneuvers, Jerome H. Travert

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate capability of flight regime recognition during complex maneuvers flown in a fixed wing airplane using measured data from an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). Flight Regime Recognition (FRR) is required for numerous applications in the aerospace and aviation industry, including the determination of loads for stress and strain analysis. It can also be used in recreational aviation for maneuver recognition, for example in aerobatics.

This study uses a flight simulator to generate representative flight data that is parsed by a specifically developed algorithm into appropriate flight regimes. This algorithm is a filter technique …

Determination Of Stability And Control Derivatives For A Modern Light Composite Twin Engine Airplane, Monica M. Londono

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

To develop and compare full envelope stability and control derivatives and their associated errors for a modern light composite twin engine airplane from flight test data and digital DATCOM (Data Compendium). This development is to serve three purposes 1) to provide data for validation of newer analytical techniques such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), 2) to provide public domain static and dynamic stability and control derivatives for a modern twin engine airplane, 3) to analyze the relationship between test design and error for both output error and equation error methods.

A flight test program was conducted on a Diamond Twin …

A Comparison Of Algorithms That Estimate The Effectiveness Of Commercial Airline Boarding Strategies, Dalila Giraldo

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The number of passengers carried by commercial aircraft has increased dramatically over the past 50 years, closely in-step with advances in aircraft design. This makes unloading and loading an aircraft, called turn-around time, critical to the success of the airport, the aircraft and the airlines. A number of mathematical algorithms have been developed over the years that purport to determine the most efficient boarding strategy for passengers by decreasing turn time. This thesis evaluated the boarding strategies most often used by the airlines and algorithms used to predict boarding efficiency. The models used were obtained from the literature and from …

"Sie Kommen" (They're Coming), David Hamilton

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

The exciting story of the training, mission briefings and overall planning that lead to the success and failure of major troop carrier operations in World War II. Told by a C-47 pilot who flew ‘pathfinder’ missions on D-Day; supply missions for Bastogne; and for ‘Market Garden’, the invasion of Holland.

Aviation Safety Information Analysis And Sharing -- General Aviation (Asias -- Ga), Alan J. Stolzer

Publications

A presentation on the collaborative government and industry initiative on data sharing and analysis to proactively discover safety concerns before accidents or incidents occur, leading to timely mitigation and prevention.

Gossamer Albatross, Steve Elliott

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Steve Elliott was active in the hobby of hang gliding, and was invited to join the Gossamer Albatross team in 1979. He assisted in its development and testing, and was there in a Zodiac raft when it became the first human powered aircraft to cross the English Channel and win the £100,000 Kremer Prize.

A Technology Survey Of Emergency Recovery And Flight Termination Systems For Uas, Richard Stansbury, Wesley Tanis, Timothy Wilson

Publications

For safe flight in the National Airspace System (NAS), either under the current interim rules or under anticipated longer-term regulatory guidelines facilitating unmanned aircraft system (UAS) access to the NAS, the UAS must incorporate technologies and flight procedures to ensure that neither people nor property in the air, on the ground, or on or in the water are endangered by the failure of an onboard component, by inappropriate unmanned aircraft (UA) response to pilot commands, or by inadvertent entry by the UA into prohibited airspace. The aircraft must be equipped with emergency recovery (ER) procedures and technologies that ensure that …

The Interaction Of Motivational Orientation And Social Context In A Flight Setting, Noelle D. Brunelle

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of motivational orientation and social context on decisions made during flight. Cultural dimensions such as power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism have been found to correlate with aviation accident rates. Self-determination theory provides a schedule of social contexts and cues that support, control or thwart individual motivation, with the task-focused properties of intrinsic motivation and the external (group) focus of extrinsic motivation similar to descriptions of the cultural dimensions of individualism and collectivism. In addition, studies have demonstrated contextual cues may be used to prime cognitive goals, behaviors and strategies. …

A Sensitivity Analysis Of Scheduling Changes On Flight Training Resource Utilization Using Discrete Event Simulation, Melissa A. Findlay

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

This study presented a scheduling model of the Flight Training Department at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach Campus built using ARENA 12.0. The purpose of the study was to determine if the Flight Training Department system was sensitive to changes in the resources available to students in Flight Training Device (FTD) course modules. Historical data from the Flight Training Department was used to build the model. As no significant difference was found between the actual real world system and the model for the number of active students and for the time it took students to complete the program, the …

The Effect Of Whole And Part-Task Training And Feedback During Simulated Instrument Flight Training, Christian Jon Rossi

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The most cost effective method for training novice pilot’s instrument flight procedures has not been well investigated. Part-task scenarios condition and a whole task scenarios condition, both with different levels of feedback were compared in a between group study of novice pilots learning a 737 instrument approach with Microsoft ESP flight simulator. The two different types of training methods were evaluated after a series of training exposures by comparing the ability to pass a series of training scenarios along with a final test. This standard was created by 737 pilots, FAA regulations, and 737 instructors. These training methods were also …

Safety Management Systems Update And Progress, Alan J. Stolzer

Publications

The Safety Management System (SMS) Day Panel Charge on March 18, 2009, delivered by Dr. Alan Stolzer, was intended to provide participants with references, tools, vocabulary, and encouragement to adopt academic and laboratory curricula that would prepare students for careers in the SMS environment.

Simulation Scoring Systems, Raynald Bedard

Publications

Simulation scoring systems including software, methods of use, and related methods that provide for simulating and scoring of aircraft flight and other missions, particularly where such simulating is purely electronic and particularly where such scoring is objective and particularly where such scoring has a plurality of gradations, as to distinguish a plurality of skill levels.

Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar Systems (Joint Stars) --- The Early Days, George Cusimano

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

J-STARS is the airborne, battle management radar platform that was such a resounding success during Desert Storm I . Hear the exciting story of the challenges associated with its early development, from the Flight Test Engineer and Mission Commander who was involved from the very start.

Adventures On The Dark Continent, Hal Cope

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Fascinating stories of flying adventures in Kenya, from
1962-1967 as told by a bush pilot, safari guide, African
wildlife photographer, airline Captain, and aviation
executive/consultant, better known as “Bwana Hal”

The Analysis Of Flight Operational Quality Assurance (Foqa) Data: Exploration Of A Proposed List Of Improved Safety Parameters, Giorge Marlon Lopes Tsuruta

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Several FOQA parameters that could enhance air carrier safety have not been recorded and/or analyzed. Airlines have traditionally chosen a limited number of parameters for analysis (thousands have been available for recording). No study in the U.S. had addressed FOQA parameters, leading to an exploratory mixed methods study. A conference call comprising FOQA industry experts was planned and completed to (a increase researcher knowledge and (b) discuss a list of improved safety FOQA parameters. A questionnaire, derived from the suggested list, was electronically sent to 40 FOQA professionals. The respondents represented 75% of the airlines with an FAA-approved FOQA program. …

Application Of Kalman Filtering To Real-Time Flight Regime Recognition Algorithms In A Helicopter Health And Usage Monitoring System, Rachel Elizabeth Rajnicek

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The purpose of this study is the application of Kalman filters to real-time Flight Regime Recognition (FRR) algorithms to identify the regime flown and observe transitions between flight regimes. Rotor fault identification, a technique that is somewhat similar to flight regime recognition, successfully used Kalman filters to determine fault types and damage locations. Recently developed FRR algorithms successfully applied Hidden Markov Models, which are similar to Kalman filters. The selected regime set for this study derives from a study performed by Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc. The selected parameter set for this study is modified from the Schweizer 300 Flight Test …

The Status Of Women Faculty In Four-Year Aviation Higher Education Programs, David C. Ison

Publications

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the status of women's participation in full-time, non-engineering aviation baccalaureate programs in the United States. In addition, the involvement of women in academic aviation leadership positions (such as chair, dean, or director) was evaluated. Of 353 full-time aviation faculty members employed at 60 different aviation programs meeting the study's criteria, 36 (10.1 %) were female. Eighty faculty were identified in academic leadership positions, and of these faculty leaders, 8 (10%) were women. These participation rates were found to be slightly higher than those found among the pilot population and in the aviation …