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In this study, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for evaluating airworthiness factors were presented. The purpose of this study is to develop an acceptable rationale for operational activities in civil and military aviation and for design, production and maintenance activities in the aviation industry that can be used in-flight safety programs and evaluations.

In aviation, while the initial and continuing airworthiness of aircraft is related to technical airworthiness, identifying and minimizing risks for avoiding losses and damages are related to operational airworthiness. Thus, the airworthiness factors in civil and military aviation were evaluated under these two categories as the technical and operational airworthiness factors by the analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process. Three technical and five operational airworthiness criteria for civil aviation, three technical and nine operational airworthiness criteria for military aviation were defined, evaluated, prioritized and compared in terms of flight safety.

The most important technical factor is the “airworthiness status of the aircraft” both in civil (81.9%) and military (77.6%) aviation, which means that aircraft should initially be designed for safety. The most significant operational factors are the “air traffic control system” in civil (30.9%) and “threat” in the military (26.6%) aviation. The differences within factor weights may stem from the design requirements and acceptable safety levels (frequency of occurrences 1 in 10⁷ in military and 1 in 10⁹ in civil aircraft design) of civil and military aircraft with the mission achievement requirements in civil and military aviation operations. The damage acceptance criteria for civil and military aircraft are different. The operation risks are accepted in the military and acceptance of specific tasks and the risk levels can vary with aircraft purpose and type.

This study provides an acceptable rationale for safety programs and evaluations in aviation activities. The results of this study can be used in real-world airworthiness applications and safety management by the aviation industry and furthermore, critical factor weights should be considered both in civil and military aviation operations and flights. The safety levels of airlines with respect to our airworthiness factor weights or the safety level of military operations can be computed.

This is the first study considering technical and operational airworthiness factors as an MCDM problem. Originality and value of this paper are defining critical airworthiness factors for civil and military aviation, ranking these factors, revealing the most important ones and using MCDM methods for the evaluations of airworthiness factors for the first time. In civil aviation flight safety is the basic tenet of airworthiness activities in risk analysis, on the other hand in military aviation high levels of risks are to be avoided in peace training or operational tasks. However, even high risks have to be accepted during the war, if the operational requirements impose, as mission achievement is vital. The paper is one of a kind on airworthiness evaluations for flight safety.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the technical and operational specifications of the Small Aircraft Transport System (SAT/SATS) to the achieved safety level.

Safety estimation was made with the use of mathematical model of safety of light aircraft in commercial operations developed on the basis of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. The analysis was conducted for two different SATS business models based on Direct AiR Transport (DART) concept. It allowed for the investigation of the impact of technical specifications of the aircraft included into the SATS fleet as well as the selected elements of the applied business model on SATS safety level.

It was found that the proposed changes to DART system resulted in a significant improvement of safety. Mean Time Between Incidents and Accident (MTBIA) increased by 200 per cent. Additionally, the introduced alterations impacted the weights of particular domains and pilot’s error became less critical than the technical reliability.

It was shown that the application of new requirements influences both the safety level and the cost of operation, which was demonstrated within the ESPOSA and DART projects. Additionally, it was indicated that further effort to improve the light aircraft safety is absolutely necessary.

Originality consists in combining in one mathematical model both the aircraft configuration and the rules for business operation. Optimization of selected parameters of the system leads to a significant reduction in the accident number and to keeping the cost increment at a reasonable level. It was also found that the resulted improvement sometimes cannot be sufficient to consider a small aircraft operation fully safe, mainly owing to the numerous restrictions because of its small weight and loading capacity.

This study aims to optionally-piloted aircraft is useful for in-flight tests of new automatic controller’s concepts. The safety of this kind of experiment is an issue addressed in this paper. The prediction of possible safety-influencing factors makes it possible to assess the pilot’s ability to effectively prevent safety risks.

The analysis in this research paper focusses on two cases of monitoring; similar control standards for both pilot in command and the monitoring pilot or technical systems in one of these tasks and dissimilar control standard when monitoring pilot is not familiar with a control manner of the pilot in command or of the automatic control system. The increased workload is expected in the last case as the result of additional activities determined theoretically in the presented analysis. Details of the possible threats are obtained by simulation tests with various factors influencing the safety of landing. In addition to determining threats, the analysis includes the possibility of in time threat detection and preserving action.

The results show that the safety pilot has a different task than the pilot in command and needs to be familiar with the general principles of automatic controller operations and the particular algorithm being tested. Although commonly used landing procedure is relatively error-tolerant, new landing procedures for use in some specific conditions need more precise control and additional safety pilot preparation. Additional information presented to both the pilot in command and the safety pilot may increase mode and state awareness and reduce reaction time in an emergency condition.

In-flight tests of non-standard control algorithms there is a need to include additional preparation of the equipment and safety pilot. The research in this paper illustrates how to determine threats and safety-critical moments during the experimental flight can be observed. The danger is mitigated by the safety pilot, if familiar with both proper and improper operations of the controller and how the pilot in command should detect and predict danger caused by the tested control system.

The presented method of analysis combines the human factor with various technical aspects. The results obtained illustrate the real tasks of the person supervising the operation of the automatic control system and the role of a human as a safety pilot.

Europe has adopted Flight Path 2050 (FP 2050) challenge with an objective of 90 per cent of the travelers being able to reach door-to-door European destinations within 4 hours by 2050. The aim can be achieved by reliable, well-organized small aircraft transport (SAT). Analysis of the currently operating small aircraft operational reliability data will support the development of future aircraft designs as well as reliability and safety requirements necessary for commercial operations.

The paper provides results of a statistical analysis of small aircraft current operations based on the reported events contained in the Database named European Coordination Centre for Aviation Incident Reporting Systems database. It presents identified safety indicators and focuses particularly on those related to the aviation technology.

It has been found that certain airframe and powerplant systems have the biggest influence on flight safety.

Multidisciplinary analysis of the operational and aircraft components reliability data will help in a proper preparation of the SAT supporting facilities, a design process of new aircraft and improvements of the existing airframe and powerplant systems.

Presented results are valuable for further developments of the statistical tools facilitating new product introduction.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the general idea, design, and implementation of control system for general aviation aircraft which reduces pilot workload.

Proposed indirect flight control system framework is intended to simplify piloting, reduce pilot workload, and allow low‐end general aviation aircraft to operate under deteriorated meteorological conditions. Classical control theory is used for the design of the flight control laws. Although not inherently robust, controllers with classical control logic are made sufficiently stable using a correct and updated controller structure.

Despite controversies between perception of a modern manned aerial vehicle and limitations imposed by legacy airworthiness codes it is shown that a pilot workload reducing system can be successfully implemented onboard of a low‐end general aviation aircraft.

Hi‐level control laws and optimization of handling qualities can lead to unfavourable and unpredictable forms of man‐machine interactions, e.g. pilot‐induced oscillations.

General aviation aircraft are mostly flown by a single pilot, who could benefit from an intelligent system or “virtual copilot” assisting in or supervising the aircraft's safe operation under any conditions. Aircraft with this capability represents a next step in the evolution that might ultimately lead to trajectory‐based free‐flight concept of aircraft operations.

The paper introduces a safety enhanced digital flight control system on board small general aviation aircraft.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss European Aviation Safety Agency’s (EASA’s) Prototype Regulation on Unmanned Aircraft Operation and introduce the tool Operational Risk Considerations for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (O.R.C.U.S.). In contrast to existing airworthiness regulations for civil manned aircraft, EASA’s approach is focussed on flight operations and not aircraft, a significant change for the domain of civil airworthiness.

O.R.C.U.S. is a software risk analysis tool developed by the corresponding author. It encompasses all relevant factors for flight operations of light Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) above populated areas in Germany. The tool generates predictions of possible fatalities in the event of a light Unmanned Aircraft crash through the use of validated statistics and considering the time and location of a mission. An example mission, including a discussion of the results, is provided to demonstrate and discuss the capabilities of O.R.C.U.S.

EASA’s Prototype Regulation on Unmanned Aircraft Operation makes a sound risk assessment of UAS flight operations indispensable. O.R.C.U.S. is able to increase risk awareness for operators and airworthiness authorities even if only less to none information about the UAS is available, supporting the possible approval of such an operation.

In this paper, O.R.C.U.S. is presented for the first time. O.R.C.U.S. can provide risk estimations for UAS operations in Germany, even if only minimum information about the UAS is available. In contrast to other tools, O.R.C.U.S. offers a unique risk prediction by combining aspects of the flying Unmanned Aircraft as well as the overflown area.

This study aims to present a diagnosis method to inspect the structure health for aging transport aircraft based on the postflight data in severe clear-air turbulence at transonic flight. The purpose of this method development is to assist certificate holder of aircraft maintenance factory as a complementary tool for the structural maintenance program to ensure that the transport aircraft fits airworthiness standards.

In this study, the numerical approach to analyze the characteristics of flight dynamic and static aeroelasticity for two four-jet transport aircraft will be presented. One of these two four-jet transport aircraft is an aging one. Another one is used to demonstrate the order of magnitude of the static aeroelastic behaviors. The nonlinear unsteady aerodynamic models are established through flight data mining and the fuzzy-logic modeling technique based on postflight data. The first and second derivatives of flight dynamic and static aeroelastic behaviors, respectively, are then estimated by using these aerodynamic models.

Although the highest dynamic pressure of aging aircraft is lower, the highest absolute value of static aeroelastic effects response to the wing of aging aircraft is about 3.05 times larger than normal one; the magnitude variations of angles of attack are similar for both aircrafts; the highest absolute value of the static aeroelastic effects response to the empennage of aging aircraft is about 29.67 times larger than normal one in severe clear-air turbulence. The stabilizer of aging aircraft has irregular deviations with obvious jackscrew assembly problems, as found in this study.

A lack of the measurement data of vertical wind speed sensor on board to verify the estimated values of damping term is one of the research limitations of this study. This research involved potential problem monitoring of structure health for transport aircraft in different weights, different sizes and different service years. In the future research, one can consider more structural integrity issues for other types of aircraft.

It can be realized from this study that the structure of aging transport aircraft may have potential safety threat. Therefore, when the airline managed aging transport aircraft, it ought to be conducted comprehensive and in-depth inspections to reduce such safety risks and establish a complete set of safety early warning measures to deal with the potential problem of aircraft aging.

It can be realized that the structure of aging transport aircraft has potential safety threat. The airline managed aging transport aircraft; it should conduct comprehensive and in-depth inspections to reduce safety risks and establish a complete set of safety early warning measures.

This method can be used to assist airlines to monitor aging transport aircraft as a complementary tool of structural maintenance program to improve aviation safety, operation and operational efficiency.