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From statistics, through new requirements to mathematical modelling of SAT aircraft safety

Bartosz Dziugiel (Department of Aircraft Design, Institute of Aviation, New Technology Center, Warsaw, Poland)
Zdobyslaw Jan Goraj (Department of Aircraft Design, Warsaw University of Technology, Warsaw, Poland)

Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology

ISSN: 0002-2667

Article publication date: 8 May 2018

149

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of the technical and operational specifications of the Small Aircraft Transport System (SAT/SATS) to the achieved safety level.

Design/methodology/approach

Safety estimation was made with the use of mathematical model of safety of light aircraft in commercial operations developed on the basis of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) data. The analysis was conducted for two different SATS business models based on Direct AiR Transport (DART) concept. It allowed for the investigation of the impact of technical specifications of the aircraft included into the SATS fleet as well as the selected elements of the applied business model on SATS safety level.

Findings

It was found that the proposed changes to DART system resulted in a significant improvement of safety. Mean Time Between Incidents and Accident (MTBIA) increased by 200 per cent. Additionally, the introduced alterations impacted the weights of particular domains and pilot’s error became less critical than the technical reliability.

Practical implications

It was shown that the application of new requirements influences both the safety level and the cost of operation, which was demonstrated within the ESPOSA and DART projects. Additionally, it was indicated that further effort to improve the light aircraft safety is absolutely necessary.

Originality/value

Originality consists in combining in one mathematical model both the aircraft configuration and the rules for business operation. Optimization of selected parameters of the system leads to a significant reduction in the accident number and to keeping the cost increment at a reasonable level. It was also found that the resulted improvement sometimes cannot be sufficient to consider a small aircraft operation fully safe, mainly owing to the numerous restrictions because of its small weight and loading capacity.

Keywords

Citation

Dziugiel, B. and Goraj, Z.J. (2018), "From statistics, through new requirements to mathematical modelling of SAT aircraft safety", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 90 No. 4, pp. 659-666. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-01-2017-0027

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2018, Emerald Publishing Limited

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