Browse Topic: Aircraft operations
The emergence of electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) air vehicles is transforming how people and freight are moved in short distances. This transformation has a profound impact on surrounding infrastructure necessary to provide Aircraft On Ground support for eVTOLs. The hover capabilities of eVTOLs have similar operating characteristics within terminal and uncontrolled airspace. However, the need to conserve battery energy via rapid approaches and departures affects terminal airspace management. To attract eVTOL operators, existing airports, landing zones, and vertiports are modifying their infrastructure to include fixed electric charging stations, additional taxiways, upgraded fire suppression systems, separate hangers, and capable MRO facilities. Augusta Regional Airport (KAGS) is the base airport for the annual Masters Golf Tournament which experiences five times the normal airport traffic and some 40,000 commuting patrons. eVTOLs can offset land traffic issues associated with commuters and supplies. Since KAGS is centroid to 32,000 square miles of territory void of major highways, basing eVTOLs can offer expedited transit services for people and goods which will have a profound impact on the economic viability and quality of life in the area.
The paper presents recent and ongoing activities of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) focusing on experimental icing investigations within the nationally funded project InTEnt-H (2018-2022) and progressive activities in continuing internal DLR projects. The aim of InTEnt-H was to investigate innovative de-icing and anti-icing technologies for small and medium-weight helicopters, for which no rotor de-icing technologies exist to date, and to demonstrate the effectiveness of these systems in a suitable test facility. For this purpose, the whirl tower test facility of the DLR in Braunschweig has been converted into an icing test facility that is unique in Europe and will allow for the generation of atmospheric icing conditions. In this facility, de-icing and anti-icing systems for rotor blades can be tested under centrifugal loads and various icing conditions. The paper starts with a short presentation of the retrofitting works at the DLR whirl tower test facility and its major components. Then, the progress of the first test campaigns of the projects are reported. The main focus is on the design and test of the de-icing rotor system, carrying different antiicing/ de-icing technologies. The paper closes with an outlook on the upcoming activities planned to satisfy and verify EASA CS-29 Appendix C icing conditions in the frame of the DLR internal project SAFER2.
The aerospace ecosystem is a complex system of systems comprising of many stakeholders in exchanging technical, design, development, certification, operational, and maintenance data across the different lifecycle stages of an aircraft from concept, engineering, manufacturing, operations, and maintenance to its disposal. Many standards have been developed to standardize and improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and security of the data transfer processes in the aerospace ecosystem. There are still challenges in data transfer due to the lack of standards in certain areas and lack of awareness and implementation of some standards. G-31 standards committee of SAE International has conducted a study on the available digital data standards in aircraft asset life cycle to understand the current and future landscapes of the needed digital data standards and identify gaps. This technical paper presents the study conducted by the G-31 technical committee. This paper reviews the data being exchanged between various stakeholders in the aerospace asset lifecycle and the availability of standards for the data transfer within the aerospace ecosystem. It identifies gaps based on the list of currently available data standards, and then creates a future landscape to address the needed digital data standards. This paper focuses on aircraft operations, maintenance, transfer, disposal processes, and post-build stage, and does not address the detailed interactions during the aircraft design, development and manufacturing phases. Its scope is also limited to key stakeholder interactions throughout the different stages of the aircraft operations, maintenance, and retirement.
eVTOL aircraft operating within the air transportation system will undoubtably be exposed to inclement and adverse weather conditions, which may well include operation in icing conditions, whether planned or encountered inadvertently. Design compromises necessary to provide VTOL operations may make continued operation in an icing environment particularly challenging, especially for eVTOL aircraft having only limited excess power for operation of anti-icing or deicing equipment. This paper describes a research program to assess the impact of accreted icing on the performance of eVTOL aircraft, as part of a program for implementation of an Icing Detection Filter that leverages detailed knowledge of that performance impact on the distributed electrical propulsion and lift systems on the vehicle. Modeling approaches for prediction of icing accretion and the associated performance losses, particularly as they can be measured through monitoring of the onboard electrical power system, are described.
A primary factor for the development of military avionics systems is the requirement for a Modular Open System Architecture (MOSA). The US Department of Defense (DoD) is driving MOSA-compliant systems to achieve benefits in cost and flexibility within their procurements. MOSA definitions are examined in light of advances in computing disciplines that open the interfaces necessary for the aircraft operator to update and manage their fleet's Health Awareness Systems (HAS). Opening the relevant HAS interfaces via software configuration toolsets and MOSA building blocks avoids contracting for costly software changes and gives control of the update to the operator. Two business related factors are presented for consideration in developing the best way forward while using MOSA principles to guide development. These factors are (1) Intellectual Property (IP) and (2) the underlying investments companies make to develop IP. The need to routinely update the HAS to incorporate fleet lessons learned is inherent in the system's support. Updates may also reflect new methodologies that deliver the desired system control to the operator. The paper demonstrates a MOSA-compliant architecture via an example. Within the example, efficiencies are driven by an end-to-end Digital Thread that minimizes errors and rework while reducing the overall cost of change for the full platform lifecycle. The approach enables organic operator support, lowering the overall cost of aircraft operations. The design and support of the platform’s Health Awareness System benefits from the application of linked-automation.
In this paper we propose a hierarchical distributed database architecture (HDDA) for tracking rotorcraft configuration, usage, and health state down to the component-level. We leverage key blockchain technologies to guarantee data integrity and provide auditable and verifiable data lineage records, enabling a fleet-wide distributed architecture that scales from onboard edge nodes to enterprise server clusters. HDDA's unique design supports key rotorcraft use cases at all organizational levels, including onboard collection of rotorcraft health and usage data by edge nodes, automated record keeping to reduce maintenance burden and error for ground support personnel, fleet-wide data analysis of individual rotorcraft components to achieve longer maintenance free operating periods and improved rotorcraft health state awareness at all organizational levels. We describe the high-level design of HDDA and provide rationale for our design choices.
Icing of the fuselage and blades may occur when the helicopter is flying in the icing area. If ice accretion occurs in the ADS(Air Data System) of the fuselage, normal speed and altitude information are lost, making it difficult to flight. When windshield icing occurs, the view of pilot is limited and flight is difficult. Also, the ice accretion of the blades deforms the outer shape of the blades (Ref. 1) and makes the dynamic characteristics unstable due to an abnormal weight increase, resulting in deterioration of performance, deterioration of maneuverability, and structural instability. To avoid this, an anti-icing or de-icing system is required. Therefore, if the aircraft is not fitted with a proper anti-icing system, it is not possible to operate under icing conditions. However, it is difficult to design a proper anti-icing system considering the position of anti-icing protection area and icing phenomenon due to limitation of electric power, weight, thermal damage temperature limit, shape and so on. It is essential of understanding of anti-icing mechanism for selection and design of appropriate anti-ice system considering configuration (impingement limit, collection efficiency), material (thermal fatigue limit, heating source) and icing amount (collection efficiency, stagnation point). This paper introduces the preparation procedure (analysis and simulation, design, scaled model test) of icing certification test and the artificial/natural icing flight test method for proving helicopter icing through KUH case, and describes the characteristics of each system for the de/anti-icing system design of the helicopter, the computational analysis method, comparison with the test result, and the improvement method of the de/anti-icing system.
Helicopter health and usage monitoring has lagged large commercial aircraft due to the limited instrumentation and high mission complexity of typical rotorcraft. To counteract these challenges, a model-based framework is introduced to utilize knowledge of engine and aircraft operation to determine (either on-board or off-board) the overall engine health and margin as well as module health based solely on aircraft Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) data. The engine and module health can then be used to estimate remaining Time on Wing (TOW) as well as most likely condition-based maintenance for the engine.
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