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The purpose of this paper is to present the irregular deviation examination of flight control surfaces and the potential problem diagnosis of irregular deviations for the jet transport aircraft. A four-jet transport aircraft at transonic flight in cruise phase is the study case of the present article.

The standard lift-to-drag ratio (L/D) and flight dynamic models are established through flight data mining and the fuzzy logic modeling technique based on the flight data of quick access recorder available in the Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) program of the airlines. The irregular deviations of flight control surfaces are examined by the standard L/D model-predicted results through sensitivity analysis. The contribution values in L/D deficiency are predicted by the deviations and the L/D derivatives of all influencing variables in Taylor series expansion. The potential problems due to irregular deviations can be excavated by the flight dynamic models through the analysis of in-flight stability and controllability.

The magnitude of stabilizer angle to the deficiency of L/D is the largest among the four control surfaces and elevator is the second one through the judgment of contribution values in L/D deficiency. The stabilizer has irregular deviations with obvious endplay problems of jackscrew, as found in the present study. The stabilizer is suggested to have the unscheduled maintenance for the flight control rigging.

The specific transport aircraft of the standard L/D model should be the best one in L/D performance among all transport aircraft in the fleet of the airlines. The present method is a new concept to monitor the irregular deviation of flight control surface. The study case of the four-jet transport aircraft at transonic flight in cruise phase is illustrated as the standard L/D mode. The required flight data of monitored flight is requested to eliminate the biases through compatibility checks. The flight data of study case in the present study is also illustrated as monitored flight data.

To diagnose the irregular deviations of flight control surface deflected angles with contributing to the L/D deficiency estimation is an innovation to improve the flight data analysis of FOQA program for airlines. If the irregular deviation problems of control surfaces can be fixed after rigging in maintenance, the goal of flight safety and aviation fuel saving will be achieved.

The flight control surface rigging of unscheduled maintenance is not expected to coincide with an airline’s peak season or unavailable space in hangar. The optimal time of unscheduled maintenance for the flight control rigging will be easily decided through the correlations between excessive fuel cost and flight safety.

This method can be used to assist airlines to monitor irregular angular positions of flight control surfaces as a complementary tool for management to improve aviation safety, operation and operational efficiency.

This study aims to introduce the reader to some problems faced by safety practitioners operating within an airline safety department, particularly risk assessment subjectivity, and processing of flight data monitoring events. In doing so, it attempts to propose solutions to these issues.

Quality management tools, including six sigma, in combination with flight data monitoring, are proposed as a solution to the issues identified.

The proposed solutions reduce the subjectivity of some risk assessments and help airlines to efficiently process flight data monitoring events.

This paper presents a two-part case study of how these issues have been dealt with by an airline. However, as demonstrated by the literature review, there seems to exist further advanced methods, some of them still in a developmental stage, to deal more effectively with the problems discussed.

This study is particularly directed and more valuable to small-scale airlines. These are more susceptible to the lack of resources needed to implement advanced approaches into the safety management system, but still want to adopt a systematic way of conducting business. Furthermore, it highlights common issues faced by safety practitioners in airlines and should hopefully stimulate the discussion around the topic and promote other academics/practitioners to share viable solutions.

The authors present a low-cost unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for autonomous flight and navigation in GPS-denied environments using an off-the-shelf smartphone as its core on-board processing unit. Thereby, the approach is independent from additional ground hardware and the UAV core unit can be easily replaced with more powerful hardware that simplifies setup updates as well as maintenance. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The UAV is able to map, locate and navigate in an unknown indoor environment fusing vision-based tracking with inertial and attitude measurements. The authors choose an algorithmic approach for mapping and localization that does not require GPS coverage of the target area; therefore autonomous indoor navigation is made possible.

The authors demonstrate the UAVs capabilities of mapping, localization and navigation in an unknown 2D marker environment. The promising results enable future research on 3D self-localization and dense mapping using mobile hardware as the only on-board processing unit.

The proposed autonomous flight processing pipeline robustly tracks and maps planar markers that need to be distributed throughout the tracking volume.

Due to the cost-effective platform and the flexibility of the software architecture, the approach can play an important role in areas with poor infrastructure (e.g. developing countries) to autonomously perform tasks for search and rescue, inspection and measurements.

The authors provide a low-cost off-the-shelf flight platform that only requires a commercially available mobile device as core processing unit for autonomous flight in GPS-denied areas.

Temperature anomalies in the upper troposphere have become a reality as a result of global warming, which has a noticeable impact on aircraft performance. The purpose of this study is to investigate the total air temperature (TAT) anomaly observed during the cruise level and its impact on engine parameter variations.

Empirical methodology is used in this study, and it is based on measurements and observations of anomalous phenomena on the tropopause. The primary data were taken from the Boeing 747-8F's enhanced flight data recorder, which refers to the quantitative method, while the qualitative method is based on a literature review and interviews. The GEnx Integrated Vehicle Health Management system was used for the study's evaluation of engine performance to support the complete range of operational priorities throughout the entire engine lifecycle.

The study's findings indicate that TAT and SAT anomalies, which occur between 270- and 320-feet flight level, have a substantial impact on aircraft performance at cruise altitude and, as a result, on engine parameters, specifically an increase in fuel consumption and engine exhaust gas temperature values. The TAT and Ram Rise anomalies were the focus of the atmospheric deviations, which were assessed as major departures from the International Civil Aviation Organizations–defined International Standard Atmosphere, which is obvious on a positive tendency and so goes against the norms.

Necessary fixed flight parameters gathered from the aircraft's enhanced airborne flight recorder (EAFR) via Aeronautical Radio Incorporated (ARINC) 664 Part 7 at a certain velocity and altitude interfacing with the diagnostic program direct parameter display (DPD), allow for analysis of aircraft performance in a real-time frame. Thus, processed data transmits to the ground maintenance infrastructure for future evaluation and for proper maintenance solutions.

A real-time analysis of aircraft performance is possible using the diagnostic program DPD in conjunction with necessary fixed flight parameters obtained from the aircraft's EAFR via ARINC 664 Part 7 at a specific speed and altitude. Thus, processed data is transmitted to the ground infrastructure for maintenance to be evaluated in the future and to find the best maintenance fixes.

The purpose of this paper is to maintain safe flight and to improve existing deicing (in‐flight removal of ice) and anti‐icing (prevention of ice accretion) systems under in‐flight icing conditions.Design/methodology/approach – A recent academic research on aircraft icing phenomenon is presented. Several wind tunnel tests of an experimental aircraft provided by NASA are used in the neural network training. Five ice‐affected parameters are chosen in the light of these experiments and researches. An offline artificial neural network is used as an identification technique. The Kalman filter is used to increase the state measurement's accuracy such that neural network training performance gets better. A linear A340 dynamic model is selected in cruise conditions. This linear model is simulated in time varying manner in terms of changing icing parameters in a system dynamic matrix. The obtained data are used in neural network training and testing.Findings – Airframe icing can grow in many ways and many points on aircraft. In this research, wing leading edge ice occurrence is only considered at the same level in both left and right wings. During ice growth other faults or anomalies are ignored.Originality/value – Existing icing sensors can only provide an indication about possible ice presence. They cannot give information of the exact level of ice. However, the efficiency of current control system of changed model decreases. The proposed technique offers a method to find out the model changes under icing conditions.

This study presents an image processing algorithm capable of calculating selected flight parameters requested by flight control systems to guide aircraft along the horizontal projection of the landing trajectory. The parameters identified based on the basics of the image of the Calvert light system appearing in the on-board video system are used by flight control algorithms that imitate the pilot’s schematics of control. Controls were generated using a fuzzy logic expert system. This study aims to analyse an alternative to classical solutions that can be applied to some specific cases.

The paper uses theoretical discussions and breakdowns to create the basics for the development of structures for both image processing algorithms and control algorithms. An analytical discussion on the first stage was transformed into laboratory rig tests using a real autopilot unit. The results of this research were verified in a series of software-in-the-loop computer simulations.

The image processing method extracts the most crucial parameters defining the relative position of the aircraft to the runway, as well as the control algorithm that uses it.

In flight control systems that do not use any dedicated ground or satellite infrastructure to land the aircraft.

This paper presents the original approach of the author to aircraft control in cases where visual signals are used to determine the flight trajectory of the aircraft.

The paper seeks to outline the limitations and constraints in measuring operational safety in an aviation environment and provide an overview of the work being done at British Airways to overcome them.

The paper looks at the limitations and problems of trying to measure safety and operational risk. These limitations are then discussed along with methodologies to overcome them. The paper then describes some of the methods being tried within British Airways to provide useful measures of risk whilst trying to avoid the problems identified previously.

The findings of the work are that there are potential ways to generate useful safety metrics from incident reporting data and that the best use of risk data is to focus attention within the organisation onto areas of risk that need to be addressed.

The paper is based on practical work being undertaken at British Airways, and therefore, is demonstrated to be practical in an aviation environment.

The drive for operational efficiency in aviation means that aircraft operations are increasingly run against a backdrop of measures and targets. This in turn generates an increasing need and desire to include safety as a metric that can be tracked and monitored. This paper is focussed on meeting that desire and ensuring that any metrics developed avoid, as far as practical, the problems of measuring safety and using it to drive operational performance.