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The purpose of this paper is to develop a stochastic detailed schedule for a preventive/scheduled/periodic maintenance program of a military aircraft, specifically a rotorcraft or helicopter.

The new model, entitled the military “periodic aviation maintenance stochastic schedule” (PAM-SS), develops a stochastic detailed schedule for a PUMA SA 330SM helicopter for the 50-h periodic inspection, using cyclic operation network (CYCLONE) and Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) techniques. The PAM-SS model identifies the different periodic inspection tasks of the maintenance schedule, allocates the resources required for each task, evaluates a stochastic duration of each inspection task, evaluates the probability of occurrence for each breakdown or repair, develops the CYCLONE model of the stochastic schedule and simulates the model using MCS.

The 50-h maintenance stochastic duration follows a normal probability distribution and has a mean value of 323 min and a standard deviation of 23.7 min. Also, the stochastic maintenance schedule lies between 299 and 306 min for a 99 per cent confidence level. Furthermore, except the pilot and the electrical team (approximately 90 per cent idle), all other teams are around 40 per cent idle. A sensitivity analysis is also performed and yielded that the PAM-SS model is not sensitive to the number of technicians in each team; however, it is highly sensitive to the probability of occurrence of the breakdowns/repairs.

The PAM-SS model is specifically developed for military rotorcrafts, to manage the different resources involved in the detailed planning and scheduling of the periodic/scheduled maintenance, mainly the 50-h inspection. It evaluates the resources utilization (idleness and queue), the stochastic maintenance duration and identifies backlogs and bottlenecks.

The PAM-SS tackles military aircraft planning and scheduling in a stochastic methodology, considering uncertainties in all inspection task durations and breakdown or repair durations. The PAM-SS, although developed for rotorcrafts can be further developed for any other type of military aircraft or any other scheduled maintenance program interval.

What will be the state of the rotary‐wing industry in the near future?

This paper aims to present an investigation on flight quality analysis and design of tilt-rotor aircraft combined with corresponding flight quality specifications.

From the perspective of modal characteristics of tilt-rotor aircraft, it focuses on the analysis of the change rules of the longitudinal short-term motion mode, lateral roll convergence mode, spiral mode and Dutch roll mode. Then, the flight quality design research is carried out using the explicit model tracking control method. The quantitative relationship between flight quality requirements and explicit model is established. Accordingly, the closed-loop flight quality of XV-15 tilt-rotor aircraft is evaluated.

The stability of spiral mode is the result of the interaction of various aerodynamic derivatives and spiral instability occurs in helicopter mode. The other motion modes are stable in full flight mode and meet the requirements of level 1 specified in ADS-33E-PRF and MIL-F-8785C flight quality specifications. There is a quantitative relationship between flight quality requirements and explicit model, and the flight quality of tilt-rotor aircraft is improved through the explicit model tracking control method.

The presented analysis results showed the influence of motion modes and flight quality and the effectiveness of explicit model tracking control method in flight quality improvement, which could be considered as new information for further flight quality design of tilt-rotor aircraft.

The originality of the paper lies in the proposed design and analysis method of the flight quality of tilt-rotor aircraft from the direction of the influence of its aerodynamic derivatives and motion modes.

Wire electric discharge machining (WEDM) is a non-conventional machining process, which is used for cutting parts of civil and military aircraft, rotorcraft, satellites and spacecraft. The cold work steel X153CrMoV12 is used in molds that are needed to produce plastic and metal parts used in these areas. It is only possible to produce parts with precise dimensions and quality with the use of mold steels with sensitive surfaces. The purpose of this study is to analyze X153CrMoV12 material by cutting it with WEDM method in precise dimensions.

The effects of varying cutting parameters on the size of the finished product, surface roughness (SR) and surface hardness were determined by making rough in one pass and precision cuts in different passes. Nikon SMZ745T, Mitutoyo micrometer, Mitutoyo SJ-210 and Insize ISHL-P100 were used for macro-analysis, dimensional control, SR and surface hardness, respectively, to determine the cut qualities.

According to the hardness measurement results obtained from the steel surface before cutting and from the cut surfaces after cutting, there was no significant change in the surface hardness owing to the use of heat-treated steel. Increasing the wire tension as a result of the increase in the number of cutting passes and the decrease in the amount of rough stock left for the final cut increased the cut quality. Cutting precision has increased by preventing vibration of the wire with zero upper and lower water pressure required for slag cleaning.

There are many studies on WEDM in the literature, but there is no similar study emphasizing the importance of the processing parameters such as the number of cutting passes and rough stock amount. In this study, cold work steel with a hardness of 56–60 HRC was machined as rough cut in one pass, rough and fine cut in double pass, double fine cut after one roughing in three passes. As a result of the cuts, 3 µm measurement precision and 0.998 Ra SR were obtained as well as there was no hardness change in the cut surfaces.