Aviation Commons^™

Directional Speaker Poster, Eugene Ng, Bryan Wong, Ruhaan Das

Student Works

Changi Airport is set to expand with a new terminal, Terminal 5. Currently, many of the airport's processes are manual, requiring a high dependence on staff. This proposal aims to incorporate automation and AI for a smoother passenger experience.

Integrated Dynamic Airline Route And Schedule Optimization, Bayan Begaliyeva

Student Works

By harnessing real-time and historical data in conjunction with advanced AI technologies, this project revolutionizes route and schedule planning, leading to enhanced efficiency, cost reduction, and an improved passenger experience.

Flying Blind: Exploring The Visual Cues Used By Helicopter Pilots In Degraded Visual Environments, Brandon Dreslin, Molly C. Mersinger, Shivani Patel, Alex Chaparro

Publications

Helicopter pilots rely on visual cues from the environment and instrument displays during critical phases of flight – particularly final approach and landing – to safely land. However, the specific visual cues pilots rely on and how they integrate those cues to make anticipatory inceptor inputs or corrections are not well understood. Importantly, those cues may be degraded under nighttime and brownout/whiteout conditions where the downwash of a helicopter’s rotors cause loose dirt/snow to be projected into the air, resulting in the obfuscation of the pilot’s vision outside the aircraft. The lack of visual cues in these conditions means that …

Implementing Dei In Aviation Education: Coping And Addressing Mental Health Concerns, Jorge L. D. Albelo Ph.D., Michael F. O'Toole Ph.D., Samantha Bowyer

Publications

In recent years, different global events have led to increased awareness of the benefits of promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and education. Notably, the aviation industry is seeing increased research initiatives to promote DEI among all generations. Nevertheless, given the rising concerns about mental health in higher education, this paper sought to connect coping and addressing mental health through implementing DEI teachings in aviation education. Integrating DEI in the aviation classroom can be challenging, as many faculty members might feel uncomfortable addressing the topic in their courses. Consequently, the researchers proposed and tested an aviation education approach …

Xr In Aviation Training: Insight From Academia, Industry, And Non-Profit Institutions, Stephanie G. Fussell, Robert L. Thomas, Bejamin Kwasa, James Birdsong, Kurt Reesman, Lori Brow, Joel Scharlat, William T. Ballo

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on education and training. Institutions that relied heavily on face-to-face instruction suddenly needed alternative modalities to keep students on course, forcing educators and trainers to employ a variety of educational techniques via technologies that they may not have had experience with. This shift has brought the advantages – and disadvantages – of augmented, mixed, and virtual reality technologies (collectively, extended reality or XR) for education and training into sharp focus. Programs were quickly assembled, and not always with consideration of learning theories. As learning and training were resumed in in-person settings, academics and …

Creating The Next Generation Of Aviation Professionals: Creating Diversity In The Next Generation, Jason T. Lorenzon

National Training Aircraft Symposium (NTAS)

Covid-19, mandatory retirement age, the 1500 Hour ATP rule and lack of future aviation professionals has lead to a global industry crisis. With the boom of the 1990’s, 9/11, the Great Recession, Covid-19, the lack of younger individuals dedicating themselves to the study of aviation has led to a current crisis of a lack of aviation professionals ready to serve the industry currently and in the future. Lorenzon will trace how the work force shortage started well over twenty years ago. Boeing and Airbus both predict that over 2.2 million new workers including over 600000 pilots will be needed. Yet …

The Impact Of Unscheduled Maintenance To An Airline’S On Time Performance, Augusto Dalazen, Beatriz Barbi, Beatriz Ponzoni, Giovanna Simões, Lucas Kamalakian

Student Works

Unscheduled maintenance events have a significant impact on airlines performance and network operations. Some events can have its consequences minimized by simple actions due to its simplicity and lack of influence in the safe conduction of a flight.

This study aimed on collecting data regarding the cost and consequences of ground turn back events in the Airbus A320 family. The study suggested that after the implementation of proper supporting regulation on Crew Applied MEL, money would be saved as well as network disruption consequences could be avoided.

The data presented in this study reflects current Brazilian legislation, and data from …

Pre-Check Security Processes In Selected Brazil Airports- Changes And Gains, Camila Miliani, Fabio Sanches, Jonatta Haniere, Rodrigo Cortes, Tais Gargano, Vanessa Reis

Student Works

The recommendation of this Research Project is to implement the precheck program at 10 Airports in Brazil with more than 5 million passengers a year. The passengers’ satisfaction, security improvement and OPEX savings would be a reality.

The expectation of OPEX savings at these 10 Airports are R$ 3.360.000,00 per year, (US$ 634.000,00) due to the possibility of using the current infrastructure and yet, reduce one Protection Agent per inspection module, per airport.

The research topic was to understand the feasibility of implementing the precheck security process in Brazil Airports. Using the U.S. benchmark, and the current Brazilian legislation, GYN …

Certification Basis For A Fully Autonomous Uncrewed Passenger Carrying Urban Air Mobility Aircraft, Steve Price

Student Works

The Urban Air Mobility campaign has set a goal to efficiently transport passengers and cargo in urban areas of operation with autonomous aircraft. This concept of operations will require aircraft to utilize technology that currently does not have clear regulatory requirements. This report contains a comprehensive analysis and creation of a certification basis for a fully autonomous uncrewed passenger carrying rotorcraft for use in Urban Air Mobility certified under Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 27. Part 27 was first analyzed to determine the applicability of current regulations. The fully electric propulsion system and fully autonomous flight control system …

Mental Health Needs Among Minority Aviation Students, Jorge L. D. Albelo Ph.D., Stacey Mcintire

Publications

Higher education, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education, benefit our society and economic growth. However, overcoming gender disparity and increasing the retention of underrepresented minorities within these programs is challenging. Mental health across higher education has shown to be on the rise, and when it comes to the mental health needs of aviation students, research shows that underrepresented minorities experience unique challenges in achieving academic success. This paper focused on identifying aviation minority students' unique challenges in a small STEM university. This mixed-methods action research study collected quantitative data using an adapted version of the Counseling Center Assessment …

Aviation Supply And Demand In The São Paulo And Rio De Janeiro Systems Evolution: An Exploratory Study, Leila Halawi, Bruno De Paula Balan, Renan Cipriano Da Cunha, Maria Claudia Ferreira Da Cunha

Publications

Aim/purpose – Multiple factors affect a passenger’s origin and destination airport choice. This study explores some of the leading indicators associated with performance in cities with more than one airport. Two important Multi-Airport Systems (MAS) in Brazil were the object of this study: São Paulo (Congonhas and Guarulhos) and Rio de Janeiro (Santos Dumont and Galeão), the most significant demand-generating centers in the country and the most critical distribution centers of flights from South America.

Design/methodology/approach – Using public databases presenting the evolution of supply and demand from 2013 to 2018, the evolution of flights, and the sales by airlines …

Business Benefits Associated With Improving Fatigue Regulations For Cargo Pilots, Arthur Chiari, Bruna De Gois E Silva, Nelson Christianini

Student Works

The central idea of this research is to assess business-related factors in the Pilots ́ Fatigue Regulations and evaluate if a more flexible regulation would improve productivity of airline cargo pilots in Brazil.

The results of the study have indicated that Brazilian Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC) can create a regulatory environment that may lead up to 34,28% of improved productivity of pilots ́ availability in cargo operations, which may contribute for gains up to USD $3.6 million for an airline with cargo 70 pilots flying 16.500 hours per year.

Aviation fatigue regulations are an extremely important subject in the aviation …

Ramping Up For Cost And Performance Improvements, Arthur Zucchetti Lechmann, Guilherme Henrique Lima, João Paulo Lucchi, Paulo Henrique Azevedo Santana, Pedro Kamikihara

Student Works

The objective of this Research Project was to study the possible benefits of developing an improved Metering Control System. This study identified potential cost savings and reduced emissions through the greater use of a Metering Control System. The results of this research have indicated an annual cost reduction of $720,000 in fuel burn and a significant delay time reduction caused by accumulated ground traffic. In addition, during peak hours, it was concluded that savings could be potentially higher. Therefore, by optimizing the ground movement, it is also expected a lower level of CO2 emissions, an increased safety level due to …

Deep Learning Prediction Models For Runway Configuration Selection And Taxi Times Based On Surface Weather, Shlok Misra

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Growth in air traffic demand in the United States has led to an increase in ground delays at major airports in the nation. Ground delays, including taxi time delays, directly impacts the block time and block fuel for flights which affects the airlines operationally and financially. Additionally, runway configuration selection at an airport significantly impacts the airport capacity, throughput, and delays as it is vital in directing the flow of air traffic in and out of an airport. Runway configuration selection is based on interrelated factors, including weather variables such as wind and visibility, airport facilities such as instrument approach …

Machine Learning And Artificial Intelligence Methods For Cybersecurity Data Within The Aviation Ecosystem, Anna Baron Garcia

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Aviation cybersecurity research has proven to be a complex topic due to the intricate nature of the aviation ecosystem. Over the last two decades, research has been centered on isolated modules of the entire aviation systems, and it has lacked the state-of-the-art tools (e.g. ML/AI methods) that other cybersecurity disciplines have leveraged in their fields. Security research in aviation in the last two decades has mainly focused on: (i) reverse engineering avionics and software certification; (ii) communications due to the rising new technologies of Software Defined Radios (SDRs); (iii) networking cybersecurity concerns such as the inter and intra connections of …

Defining Aviation “Skills” To Ensure Effective, Safe, And Efficient Evaluations: A Qualitative Study, Jorge L. D. Albelo Ph.D., Haydee M. Cuevas, Marisa Aguiar, Christopher Piccone, Karlene Petitt, Raquel Villagomez

Publications

The present qualitative case study strives to define the term skill within aviation, drawing from the cognitive psychology, organizational psychology, and training literature as well as input from subject matter experts in the aviation industry. A review of the published literature revealed no consensus for defining what constitutes a skill. While some definitions follow a task-based approach, others emphasize more cognitively based representations. Moreover, a formal, commonly accepted definition of the term skill within the aviation domain is lacking. The researchers employed a qualitative case study methodology to extract true descriptions from the subject matter experts to bound and expand …

Girls In Aviation - Keynote Speaker, Sarah Nilsson

Publications

Girls in Aviation Day (GIAD) Keynote address by Associate Professor of Applied Aviation Science Sarah Nilsson.

A Qualitative Descriptive Study On Re-Assessing The Mental Certification By Faa For Future Pilots, Kaung Z. Min

Student Works

Mental illness becomes one of the main problems that most pilots do not usually address. It is not because pilots do not have the courage or are open enough to talk with someone, but because the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) forces them to hide from mental depression. Most of the time, the pilots are not willing to declare such illnesses as they fear losing their job; simultaneously, the Federal Aviation Agencies across the world require pilots to be in peat health, including their mental condition, to operate the aircraft. While it can be said that the passengers’ and crews’ safety …

Validated Question Bank For Assessing Pilot Knowledge Of Aviation Weather Appendix: Weather Product Interpretation Questions, Robert Thomas, Cassandra Dommingo, John Kleber, Jackie Mcsorely, Amber Cole, Thomas Guinn, Elizabeth Blickensderfer

General Aviation Weather Display Interpretation

This appendix supplements the Thomas et al. (2022) paper titled “Validated Question Bank for Assessing Pilot Knowledge of Aviation Weather ” which validates a set of weather product interpretation questions that can be used to measure a pilot’s understanding of weather. The assessment consists of 15 weather product interpretation topics which can be administered as a single 65-question survey or, as in the Thomas et al. (2022) study, two assessments of 33 and 32 questions each separated by topic. The set of 65 questions can be found in this appendix along with a table which demonstrates how to separate the …

Commercial Short-Haul Flight Or Autonomous Mobility-On-Demand: Modeling Air Passengers’ Modal Choice, Agatha Kessler Fentress

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Commercial short-haul flights (SF) are vital to airports and airlines because they account for one-third of hub traffic and have higher profit margins than the long-haul market. While U.S. commercial air passenger travel has increased steadily over the past decades, SF has been declining and was doing so before the unprecedented decrease in air travel caused by restrictions related to the COVID-19 global pandemic. Once autonomous mobility-on-demand (aMoD) is more viable than the human-driven car, demand for SF could be negatively impacted. Although there is published research on SF and aMoD, studies on factors influencing the choice between SF and …

Prediction Of Severity Of Aviation Landing Accidents Using Support Vector Machine Models, Dezsö V. Silagyi

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this study was to apply support vector machine (SVM) models to predict the severity of aircraft damage and the severity of personal injury during an aircraft approach and landing accident and to evaluate and rank the importance of 14 accident factors to the severity. Three new factors were introduced using the theory of inattentional blindness: The presence of visual area surface penetrations for a runway, the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) visual area surface penetration policy timeframe, and the type of runway approach lighting.

The study comprised 1,297 aircraft approach and landing accidents at airports within the United …

Determining Contributing Factors For Passenger Airline Pilot Perceived Fatigue, Heidi C. Kim

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Fatigue is a recurring concern for pilots and continues to be a common contributing cause of aircraft accidents. The purpose of the dissertation was to determine factors that influence fatigue in commercial airline pilots. The ability to accurately associate fatigue in pilots before a flight begins could have a profound and meaningful impact on aviation safety. Seven factors were identified in the literature review as having possible predictive capabilities of perceived fatigue in pilots working for passenger carriers, including time awake, perceived stress, sleep quality, hours of sleep, age, typically scheduled start time, and hours on duty.

An …

Predicting The Impact Of Covid-19 On Air Transportation Volumes, Dothang Truong

Publications

COVID-19 has significant impacts on air transportation. This paper aims to predict domestic and international transportation volumes during the pandemic. Daily trips by distance are novel variables in the prediction. Additionally, COVID-19 severity, vaccination, and economic index are other predictors. Artificial Neural Networks and Monte Carlo simulations were used to develop and validate the predictive models using data from various sources in 2021. The findings confirm the importance of daily trips by distance and vaccination as significant predictors. Airlines can use the models to predict air transportation volumes and formulate appropriate strategies to meet the air travel demand and improve …

Comparing Training Effects Of Virtual Reality Flight Simulation To Conventional Pc-Based Flight Simulation, Tianxin Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of the current project was to investigate the effect of utilizing Virtual Reality (VR) technologies for flight training by comparing the training results when using conventional desktop flight simulation versus VR flight simulation. Additionally, this project examined the user experience of VR flight simulation and how users’ motivation and satisfaction with VR simulations. This research employed a quasi-transfer of training experiment including 48 participants. Analyses indicated that VR group participants performed better in the post-training maneuver performance on an FTD than in the conventional desktop simulation group. Findings also supported that VR flight simulation could provide a better …

Greater Understanding Of Human Factors Will Lead To Improved Aviation Safety, Alaba Gabriel Idowu

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

The objective of this research was to reveal the impact of human factors on flight safety and provide corrective recommendations that can mitigate human errors in the aviation industry. The method of investigation included an evaluation of the crash of Avianca Airlines Flight 052, which resulted in findings of probable cause of the accident and evaluated how human factors, including a lack of effective communication, stress, fatigue, complacency, lack of awareness, norms, assumptions, and pressure affected the safety of flight. In addition, an analysis of the data and information synthesis was done to arrive at results, conclusions, and recommendations to …

Intention To Complain About Unmanned Aircraft System Noise: A Structural Equation Analysis, Robert Brents

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Aircraft noise has a long and documented history as a source of public annoyance and a driver of noise complaints. The impending large-scale use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS)s could expose a broader cross-section of the public to a new type of aircraft noise. Recent research notes some reactions to UAS noise, but no rigorous analyses of public intention to complain about UAS noise have been found.

Due to the potential proliferation of UASs and their attendant noise, understanding public reaction could advise both government and industry. Governments at all levels could apply the results to inform policies related to …

Resilience Attributes Of Certificated Flight Instructors, David Cross, Kristine Kiernan

Publications

The aviation industry has extensive vocabulary, data sources, and theoretical models to investigate human errors. However, the industry does not have commensurate ways to think about and analyze human success. Learning from successful routine operations is challenging because the corresponding common language and data streams are less robust. This paper explores the use of the critical incident debrief method to collect data on routine resilient performance among Certificated Flight Instructors (CFI). CFI thoughts and behaviors were coded in accordance with resilience theory. The critical incident debrief method is a valuable source of data for exploring resilient performance as it provides …

Assessing Unstabilized Approaches: A Phenomenology Study Of The Risk Perceptions And Decision-Making Thought Process Of General Aviation Pilots., Shlok Misra, Jorge L. D. Albelo Ph.D., Victor Fraticelli Rivera

Publications

The Federal Aviation Administration emphasized the need to focus on and develop human factors training as early as 1993 in official Human Factors Policy Order 9550.8. The purpose of this study was to conduct a detailed qualitative phenomenological analysis of the risk perceptions and decision-making model of collegiate aviation pilots for unstabilized approaches. The study focused on understanding how collegiate aviation pilots perceive unstable approaches, the risk associated with unstable approaches, and the factors that trigger pilots to execute a go-around. The International Air Transportation Association warns that continuing an unstabilized approach can lead to runway excursions, hard landings causing …

Timestamp Estimation From Outdoor Scenes, Tawfiq Salem, Jisoo Hwang, Rafael Padilha

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The increasing availability of smartphones allowed people to easily capture and share images on the internet. These images are often associated with metadata, including the image capture time (timestamp) and the location where the image was captured (geolocation). The metadata associated with images provides valuable information to better understand scenes and events presented in these images. The timestamp can be manipulated intentionally to provide false information to convey a twisted version of reality. Images with manipulated timestamps are often used as a cover-up for wrongdoing or broadcasting false claims and competing views on the internet. Estimating the time of capture …

How To Construct A Safety Management System (Sms) That Promotes Safety Culture In Your Organization, Tara Samuels

International Journal of Aviation, Aeronautics, and Aerospace

Organizations spend considerable resources building robust Safety Management Systems, yet may struggle to develop a strong Safety Culture. The effect can ripple throughout the organization, particularly affecting employee safety, as well as product quality, productivity, engagement, and retention. This paper introduces the four basic components and most critical cultural preconditions of a successful SMS. It then provides recommendations aligned with each of the four basic components to guide management toward creating the kind of work environment that empowers and engages employees at all levels of the organization. Building a strong Safety Culture is simply good business, and the research conducted …