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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.

Artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems can save the lives of many people by assessing the safety of flight paths. Unfortunately, the world witnessed a horrible event in January 2020 with the case of flight 752 of Ukrainian International Airlines from Tehran to Kiev and it has prompted us to ask how AI can prevent such events by warning to flight path planners. This paper aims to propose a framework for assessing the safety of flight paths from a shooting of an airplane by air defense systems installed on the path. Unlike the existing studies, this study takes a new look at pre-flight risk assessment by using textual information in social and news networks. To this end, the authors use existing information retrieval techniques to identify high flight risk areas by examining the news articles, comments, posts, tweets, etc., in social media and then estimate the probability of targeting a passenger aircraft by the air defense systems probably installed on high-risk areas with the help of a statistical model. This estimation can then be used by fight planners to avoid such events.

To design a framework for estimating the probability of a fatal shooting of an airplane by air defense systems installed on its flight path, the authors have used the idea of information retrieval in conjunction with statistical methods. The authors have extracted some significant variables in the shooting of flights and proposed an AI-based framework to estimate the probability of a fatal shooting of an airplane during its flight and sketched a case study for using machine learning approaches to assist with flight path planning. As a case study, the authors covered flight 752 to explain the usefulness of the proposed framework in this context.

Unlike the existing methods, this study investigates flight path safety assessment from the social media and crowdsourcing perspective. In this study, the authors proposed an AI-based framework to avoid aviation hazards by estimating the probability of a shooting of an airplane by air defense systems installed on its flight path. Moreover, this study was designed to show how estimating the safety of flight paths by using AI-based methods can help flight planners to avoid such events and gain further insights into the use of AI-based systems in pre-flight risk assessment.

The idea behind the proposed method is original and as the authors’ best knowledge, there is no similar framework using social media for flight path safety assessment.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on flight exceedances in pilots' operations. With some bad conditions, such as a bad weather, flight exceedances might lead to serious consequences. They are significant hidden dangers of aviation. Risk analysis is carried out to identify pilots' high‐risk or low‐risk operations.

A multi‐objective optimization model is proposed for risk analysis of flight operations. An evolutionary algorithm is designed to divide flight operation state‐space into some high‐risk and low‐risk sub‐spaces.

Through the empirical study of a certain flight exceedance with the analysis model, the authors discover some high‐risk flight operations, which indicate coordination problems in coordinate control of airplane's speed, rate of descent, heading, roll and pitch, etc.

This paper employs a quantitative model to carry out risk analysis of flight operations. The results are useful to pilots' training and may improve flight safety fundamentally. The risk analysis of flight exceedance is one specific case in airlines safety risk management. Some other problems, such as cause analysis of flight delay, aircraft faults diagnosis, can be addressed in the same way and dealt with by specific model adjustments and algorithm designs.

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 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.

Due to recent international media reports of terrorist attacks in airports, people are more aware of the risk terrorism poses to flying and the need for security measures in the airline industry. This study aims to examine factors affecting willingness to pay (WTP) for airline security and safety flights after terror attacks incident.

A polling company distributed an internet survey among 415 Israelis in July 2014, after thousands of missiles had been fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip, threatening the population and disrupting aviation traffic to and from Israel. The results show that individuals who attributed higher importance to airline security and exhibited more fear and less optimism were willing to pay more for airline security and safety.

The results show that individuals who attributed higher perceived importance to airline security and exhibited more fear and less optimism were willing to pay more for the security and safety of flying.

The implications of the study are important for understanding how terrorist attacks and negative aviation events affect people’s feelings, pessimism/optimism and general attitudes toward airline security.

Due to the increase in the number of terror attack involving airlines, it is important for understanding the demand for tickets on secure airlines. Such an understanding is essential for evaluating the perceived benefit of safety and security improvements in the aviation industry and for developing marketing strategies for different tickets.

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 goal of the paper is to present an enhancement of the existing on‐board ground collision avoidance system (GCAS) that is designed to increase pilot safety in USAF A‐10 aircraft. The A‐10 is a single‐seat, twin‐engine aircraft with a 30mm, seven‐barreled Gatling gun and 11 weapon pylons designed to fly at low level in close air support missions. The GCAS system provides both visual and aural cues for a pilot‐initiated recovery. The proposed algorithm of GCAS enhancement is built on a simple linear regression model that predicts the recovery height of the aircraft following a warning call and allows pilots to compare their own training events with flight test standards. This paper presents a discussion of model development, validation and comparison of the model predictions with actual flight test events. A comparison of recovery techniques and pilot options is included. A series of recommendations and possible usage for Air Force pilot training are also discussed.

Currently, in many countries, aviation safety regulations allow piston engines exploitation above Time Between Overhaul (TBO) recommended by manufacturers. Upon fulfillment of certain requirements, which are already included in the manufacturers’ documentation, TBO extension is granted. National Aviation Authority has approved exploitation of piston engines to something like quasi on-condition maintenance, which has no technical proof behind. This leads to the conclusion that the current, simple way of the engine’s life extension is not the best solution for maintaining flight safety. Aircraft piston engines TBO extension requires changes in the current exploitation system.

The paper provides methodology for aircraft piston engines on-condition exploitation based on engine flight parameters (from cruise and takeoff) and engine oil particles analysis. The paper describes a method of diagnostic limits for certain engine parameters and elements in the oil assignation assuming that they come under rules of normal distribution.

It has been found that piston engines installed on maximum takeoff mass <5,700 kg class aircraft are the second biggest contributor as a source of aviation events, thereby having a significant impact on aviation safety. Engine flight parameters and elements content in the oil meet Gaussian rules.

Introduction of the engine on-condition exploitation into operation practices reduces the operator’s engine direct maintenance cost and increases technical knowledge of the employees and has a positive impact on flight safety.

It is the first scientific description in Poland, which proposes an empirically proved methodology of the aviation piston engines on-condition exploitation.