Browse Topic: Aircraft certification
This paper outlines observations from an FAA-sponsored research project that examined aviation Fly-By-Wire (FBW) accidents. The goal was to identify risk areas that will help guide a focus for FAA certification testing. Part of this study specifically focused on current powered-lift tiltrotors, identifying six general categories of causal factors for accidents, which will be discussed in detail regarding how they influenced flight control designs. The results of this survey, along with extrapolation to current designs, will be discussed and will illustrate why manufacturers are moving toward state-based flight control designs. In a state-based flight control scheme, the pilot does not have direct control over aircraft attitudes and motor tilt angles. Instead, the pilot requests a speed and or flight path with inceptor input, and the commanded attitudes and motor tilts are scheduled by the flight control computer. Additionally, recent lessons learned from electric Vertical Takeoff and
In the last years, new rotorcraft configurations have increased the attention among industries, through which the tiltrotor one due to its capability of combining both rotorcraft and aircraft advantages. However, there are situations where the vertical take-off mode could be enhanced in hard environmental and flight conditions. Therefore, to address this challenge, this work aims to develop a methodology to characterize a roll take-off model for a general tiltrotor configuration in such situations. By combining the integration of the equation of motion and geometrical assumptions, the runway distance is determined for an acceptable range of nacelle tilting angles. The process is developed by meeting the requirements defined by the regulations, combining the aircraft certification standards (CS23 and CS25) with the available tiltrotor certification basis from the FAA project #TC3419RC-R. Following the Nominal application, a sensitivity analysis is carried out, which studies the main
Aircraft Certification is a mature and complex bureaucracy that has successfully ensured a very high degree of safety of aircraft design, construction, operation and maintenance. Outside of a very few doing the work, there is a general lack of knowledge of certification details. For novel technologies such as electric power, and innovative configurations such as multi-rotors, the rules are far less mature and still emerging and so also poorly understood. Within the Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) initiative, many new aircraft developments are underway using novel configurations, and the public announcements of regulatory progress toward FAA or EASA Type Certification capitalize on this ignorance by being vague or even misleading. Honeywell conceived the Regulatory Readiness Level (RRL) indicator as an objective measure of certification status to serve the AAM industry and ecosystem, with applicability across aviation. The released RRL Version 1 now enables credible, objective assessment of
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an emerging technology with a large variety of commercial and military applications. In-flight icing occurs during flight in supercooled clouds or freezing precipitation and is a potential hazard to all aircraft. In-flight icing on UAVs imposes a major limitation on the operational envelope. This report describes the unsettled topics related to UAV icing. First, typical UAV applications and the general hazards of icing are described. Second, an overview of the special technical characteristics of icing on autonomous and unmanned aircraft is given. Third, the operational challenges for flight in icing conditions are discussed. Fourth, technologies for ice protection that mitigate the icing hazard are introduced. Fifth, the tools and methods required to understand UAV icing and to develop aircraft with cold-weather capabilities are presented. Finally, an assessment of the current and future regulations regarding icing on UAVs is provided.Icing is a key
ABSTRACT System safety is the application of engineering and management principles, criteria, and techniques to achieve acceptable mishap risks. As modern rotorcraft designs become ever more complex, system safety becomes ever more essential. System safety typically reduces mishap risks through analyses that identify and address potential system failure modes. Documents such as MIL-STD-882, SAE ARP4754, SAE ARP4761, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) System Safety Handbook guide the various analyses that are performed in the system safety process. The use of these analyses to reduce mishap risks is not new, but case studies indicate that if the system safety process is applied to influence rotorcraft designs earlier in the product life cycle, schedule slippage and cost escalation resulting from design changes can be substantially reduced. In addition, earlier completion of system safety analyses permits corrective actions to be implemented at a higher level in the system
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