Aviation Authority Research Articles

Risk Assessment Procedure of Final Approach to Landing Using Deep Learning

Flight safety is the highest priority of all involved in aviation. All civil aviation authorities around the world have the responsibility to guarantee flight safety, but the flight data are considered confidential and regarded as trade secrets by airlines. Therefore, the publicly available sources are employed in the study to investigate the risk and related factors of flight safety during the approach to landing. Automatic Dependent Surveillance–Broadcast flight trajectory data and the Meteorological Terminal Aviation Routine Weather Report are used to analyze the risk associated with the final approach to landing. This study presents a procedure to conduct the data mining and risk assessment of flights landing at Taipei Songshan Airport (TSA). A deep learning method is adopted to tackle the problems associated with nonlinear regression that cannot be addressed by traditional statistical regression methods. The trajectory and glide path angle deviations of each flight are determined and applied to the model training. These two deviation variables are regarded as the evaluation standards, while the weather conditions are used as risk factors. Each weather factor in the deep learning models is weighted by the permutation feature importance analysis to capture how much influence each factor has on predictions from the model. The results show that the estimation accuracy of trajectory deviation with the 10-input model and glide path angle deviation with the 11-input model is over 90 and 95%, respectively. The trajectory deviations of runway 10 have higher impacts from temperature, precipitations, and crosswind.

Data Analytics and Organizational Performance of Kenya Civil Aviation Authority

: Organizational performance, a pivotal metric determining its sustainability and standing among stakeholders and shareholders, was the focal point of investigation in this study within the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority (KCAA) and its relationship with data analytics. Four specific objectives were established: to evaluate the impact of descriptive analytics on KCAA's organizational performance; to assess the influence of prescriptive analytics on the same; to understand the relationship between predictive analytics and KCAA's organizational performance; and to scrutinize the effect of diagnostic analytics on KCAA's organizational performance. The study drew upon three established theoretical frameworks: the Resource-Based View (RBV), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), and the Schumpeterian Innovation Theory. The research encompassed 1400 technical and operational staff across KCAA's headquarters in Nairobi, Moi International Airport in Mombasa, and Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, along with airline operators and pilots. A pilot study, conducted with 30 respondents, ensured the reliability and validity of the research instrument. Reliability tests yielded a Cronbach alpha coefficient averaging 0.79, indicating strong reliability, while validity tests confirmed the instrument's validity, with Average Variance Extracted (AVE) values surpassing the 0.5 threshold. The primary study involved 300 randomly selected participants, utilizing questionnaires for data collection. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were employed for data analysis, revealing a strong positive correlation among variables. Specifically, various types of data analytics displayed positive significance: Descriptive Analytics (β = 0.133, t = 2.046, p < 0.05), Prescriptive Analytics (β = 0.198, t = 3.146, p < 0.05), Diagnostic Analytics (β = 0.190, t = 3.089, p < 0.05), and Predictive Analytics (β = 0.120, t = 1.961, p = 0.05). Diagnostic tests affirmed the absence of multi-collinearity, data normality, and heterogeneous data. Respondents collectively acknowledged the significant impact of data analytics on KCAA's organizational performance, with the study concluding that KCAA had not fully leveraged data analytics, leading to the recommendation of a policy framework prioritizing their ongoing big data ICT initiatives, and advocating for regular implementation of diagnostic analytics to enhance aviation performance, employee engagement, and overall organizational success. 
 Key Words: Data Analytics, Descriptive Analytics, Prescriptive Analytics, Diagnostic Analytics, Predictive Analytics, Organizational Performance

Lotnicze przewozy pasażerskie w okresie pandemii covid-19 w Polsce

Air transport development trends were disrupted as a result of the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the emergence of a global pandemic. During this difficult period, the largest drop in the number of air passengers in history occurred. For example, in 2020, compared to 2019, there was a global decrease in the number of passengers in air transport by 60% and in Poland by 70%. Temporary restrictions were introduced, related to, inter alia, the cancellation of flights from countries with a high incidence rate, a mandatory SARS-CoV-2 virus test or a quarantine order upon arrival. The main aim of the study was to present the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on passenger traffic at Polish airports. Attempts were made to obtain answers to the following questions: (1) what were the changes in the number of passengers served in Poland before and during the COVID-19 pandemic; (2) what actions/restrictions were taken in the field of air transport in the face of an increased number of COVID-19 cases; and (3) how has the SARS-CoV-2 virus affected airports and air carriers in Poland. The research was based on the statistical data of: the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Eurostat, Eurocontrol, and the Polish Central Statistical Office. The study presents the situation as of the end of 2021.

The effect of emergency floatation system (EFS) on helicopter stability during ditching

In recent times, there has been a notable increase in economic activities in the world’s oceans. This growth in oceanic economic activity is attributed to various natural resources, such as fish, minerals, and energy reserves, which promise significant economic gains. In many cases, helicopters have proven valuable for efficient and flexible transportation due to their ability to navigate challenging terrain and reach remote locations. They are often used for various transportation tasks, including emergency medical services, search and rescue operations, offshore oil rig transportation, and corporate travel. Flying across the ocean poses a significant risk due to the absence of a landing platform throughout the journey. In an emergency, there may not be a safe place to land, potentially endangering the lives of those on board. Additionally, aircraft must be equipped with advanced technology and safety features to mitigate potential risks and ensure a successful journey across the vast expanse of the ocean. The aviation authority’s studies on using Emergency Floatation Systems (EFS) have highlighted the need for improvements to prevent fatalities resulting from helicopter ditching. Despite implementing the Emergency Floatation System (EFS) in helicopters, several reports indicate that fatalities still occur, often related to the helicopter’s stability during ditching. This suggests that while safety measures have been put in place, there may be a need for further improvements in helicopter design and safety protocols to minimize the risk of accidents and fatalities. This research utilizes simulation techniques to measure the stability performance of helicopters during water ditching quantitatively. This study aims to optimize the configuration of EFS to prevent capsizing, with a particular focus on the role of weather conditions in contributing to EFS failures. Through careful analysis and consideration of this crucial factor, the research aims to identify and implement strategies to enhance EFS operations’ safety and stability, ultimately improving overall performance and reducing the risk of catastrophic incidents.

Perception about Less Physical Activity and its Effect among Service Holders in Dhaka City of Bangladesh

Introduction: Physical activity has been traditionally defined as any bodily movement produced by contraction of skeletal muscle that substantially increases energy expenditure, although the intensity and duration can vary substantially. Lack of physical activity is known to be one of the most important risk factors for leading to morbidity and mortality around the world leading to an estimated 3.2 million deaths globally. Objectives: To assess perception about less physical activity and its effect among service holders in Dhaka city of Bangladesh. Methods: The study was conducted in Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh, Kurmitola; Janata Bank Limited, Satmasjid Road Branch; Rayerbazar Government Primary School, Rayerbazar and six gyms (training centers) of Dhaka, Bangladesh. A total of 15 government workers and 15 key informants purposefully (trainers of physical activities) selected for in-depth interview. Socio-demographic data were entered into SPSS version 21. Thematic area were identified and analyzed based on the themes. Result: Total 30 study participants (15 Government office worker and 15 Key Informant) were interviewed. All participants have good perception of physical activities. 7 of workers are moderately physically active (fulfill globally recommended physical activity rate) with 150 minutes of physical activity performance per week. The rest 3 workers have insufficient physical activities which is less than 150 minutes of physical activity per week. Factor like laziness, overloaded by office work, lack of self-confidence in doing physical activity, lack of awareness about physical activity, place factor, poor time management, lack of communication and economic status of workers were found as behaviors or factors affecting doing of physical activities among government office workers. Conclusion and recommendations: There is high number of physical activity insufficiency among workers and there are large numbers of factors that affect physical activity doing of workers. Therefore, the government should work on these factors to make worker healthy and productive.

Improving flight delays prediction by developing attention-based bidirectional LSTM network

Recently, the significance of accurate aircraft delay forecasting has grown in the aviation sector, which caused multi-billion-dollar losses faced by airlines and airports and passenger loyalty losses. Due to the importance of accurate flight delay prediction for all stakeholders involved, the aviation sector seeks to develop techniques for more robust flight delay prediction. Is quickly becoming an important research issue to improve airport and airline service performance and offer customers dependable travel itineraries. Machine learning techniques have been used in a number of studies to evaluate and resolve issues with flight delay prediction. This paper proposes a framework integrated network called ‘Attention-based Bidirectional long short-term memory’ (ATT-BI-LSTM) for flight delay prediction. The Bidirectional LSTM model extracts the spatial and temporal of the flight network with weather features. The ‘Attention mechanism’ has been proposed to enable the model to discover significant and discriminating features that contribute to categorization. The first stage of the proposed framework is the ‘preprocessing of dataset’ which is performed through two steps. The first step is data transformation using MinMax scaler to reduce the variation in the data. The second step is ‘balancing the dataset’ using SMOTE technique for balancing data. The second stage is the establishment of the ATT-BI-LSTM network through the deep tuning experiments of network structure to identify the best combination of parameters and network architecture. To validate the performance of the proposed framework, a wide network of US domestic flights tested in two scenarios. In Scenario 1, the objective is to predict the delay of flight arrival and departure, by using basic flight features with the weather. In Scenario 2, the objective is to predict the delay of flight arrival, by using basic flight features with departure delays. Simulation results show that in scenario 1, the training accuracy of flights’ delay is 88% in both flight delay arrivals and departure, and the testing accuracies of flights’ delay 83% and 82% in departure and arrival respectively. On the other hand, in scenario 2, testing accuracies are 94.30% and 93.71% in the two datasets respectively. The simulation results show that the ATT-BI-LSTM model outperforms other models found in the literature. Therefore, the developed ATT-BI-LSTM framework can contribute strongly to mitigating flight delays by providing a high accuracy prediction system in real-time monitoring to airport and aviation authorities.

Causal Factors Analysis of runway excursion occurrences through Fuzzy Logic Modeling method

Runway excursion (RE) was one of main contributing factors to aviation occurrences whilst unstable approach precursors were the ones accounting for a significant proportion of those occurrences. The objective of this study is to identify the most influencing causal factors (hazards and risks) of RE occurrences and propose countermeasures to mitigate potential RE risks and RE occurrences in Taiwan. Causal Factors Analysis System and Fuzzy Logic Modeling method are used to classify hazards and risks of RE occurrences and establish a fuzzy logic model for RE occurrence predictions. The final squared multiple correlation coefficients (R2 = 0.9999) verify that the predictive capabilities of the final RE model are not affected after the exclusion of the less influencing parameters. Sensitivity analysis reveals that avoiding crosswind or tailwind landings can significantly reduce the likelihood of RE occurrences; and reducing inadequate supervision related errors is the most cost-effective strategy to mitigate probable RE risks. Local civil aviation authority and airline operators are all responsible to collaborate with each other to mitigate causal factors of RE occurrences due to inadequate supervision. Recommended countermeasures to the civil aviation authority: maintain sufficient depth of technical staff and appropriate deployment of management level personnel to conduct safety oversight; to airline operators: formulate non-punitive policy, clearly define and document go-around procedures, and develop evidence-based training for pilot monitoring's competencies needed including monitoring, call out and intervention to take control.

Aerial Social Spaces and State Power

This article suggests that aerial networks can be usefully conceptualized as broad “aerial social spaces” that can (and often do) extend, produce, and reproduce state power. They are not easily created: their creation and maintenance require large resources both on land and in the air. The same aerial network can be embodied in multiple aerial social spaces that produce and reproduce state power in different ways. This article highlights two such pathways: the first through cultural and the second through logistical impact. In support it presents two case studies based on the expansion of civil aviation in the developing world in the 1940s and 1950s: the International Civil Aviation Authority's interventions in the Middle East and US involvement in Saudi Arabian aviation.

The Role of Human Factors in Evaluating and Updating Requirements for Flight Deck Displays and Controls

The remarkable level of safety of aviation operations is due, in part, to Federal Aviation Administration requirements and guidance that govern civilian aviation activities in the United States National Airspace System. At times, these requirements and guidelines need reevaluation and updating—for example, due to a known change in the pilot workforce or with flight deck technology. This paper provides examples of when this may be necessary, and explains the role that human factors research plays in this process. One objective of this paper is to make the case that it is necessary to periodically review and update requirements and guidance, even if the equipment or technology haven’t changed; often the human operators have changed or additional information is now available. Additionally, the process described here may be applicable to international aviation authorities, other federal agencies, and the private sector, as a best practice and critical safety initiative.

Trials in Transit

A defense contractor flying organisation, Hawker Hunter Aviation delivers fast jet trials support and threat simulation under UK Military Aviation Authority approval

Religiosity and Credibility of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) of the Civil Aviation Authority of The Philippines (CAAP)

This study aimed to establish the significant influence of religiosity on the credibility of the Bids and Awards Committee of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines. There were 300 respondents in this study chosen through the random sampling technique. Respondents were the members of the Bids and Awards committees, office personnel, suppliers, and bidders of the Civil Aviation of the Philippines, excluding the rest of the aviation employees not involved in the procurement system of CAAP. A non-experimental quantitative design utilized a descriptive correlational technique to gather data. Statistics used in data analysis were the mean and standard deviation, Pearson r, and regression analysis. Results showed a very high level of religiosity and a high level of credibility among the respondents. In addition, the correlation test revealed a significant positive relationship between religiosity and credibility. Furthermore, the regression analysis revealed the overall influence of religiosion to credibility. When regressed individually, it was found that responsibility best predicts credibility.

How to legally use drones for surveys?

Drones are very useful for civil engineering and environmental surveys because drones may increase productivity, allow more regular and comprehensive monitoring of construction progress, monitor the status of infrastructures (e.g. bridges), and anyway collect a vast amount of digital data, which can be easily stored, manipulated and shared. However, while the benefits offered to end users by drones are becoming apparent to the entire professional community, possibly not anyone is yet aware of the conditions to fly drones legally in different jurisdictions. The aim of this article is to respond to some of the most common questions on the regulation of drones, hoping that the answers might facilitate the development of business cases for organisations that have not yet decided to use drones, or which intend to expand their use. In the USA Part 107 lists detailed limitations and conditions for the UA flight, but it does not have a clear list of responsibilities of the RPIC compared with the wider responsibilities of the UAS operator (e.g. the commercial company employing the pilot). In the EU, USA, and other jurisdictions, the first obligation to legally fly a drone for professional purposes is registration; the drone (if MTOM 250 g or more) in the USA and the operator in the EU (even if the drone is below 250 g). Virtual and ‘face-to-face’ courses on the regulation of non-military drones are available at the Joint Aviation Authorities – Training Organisation (JAA-TO).

Outsourcing Aircraft Maintenance: What Impact on Flight Safety?

The practice of outsourcing aircraft maintenance has become increasingly prevalent in the aviation industry. This article examines the critical issue of how outsourcing impacts flight safety. While outsourcing maintenance offers potential cost savings and increased operational efficiency, concerns arise regarding its impact on flight safety. The article delves into the potential risks associated with outsourcing, including challenges in ensuring compliance with stringent safety regulations and standards. The study explores how the geographical distance between airlines and maintenance providers may hinder effective oversight and communication. It also addresses the potential implications of language barriers, cultural differences, and varying safety protocols on maintenance quality and safety outcomes. To gain a comprehensive understanding, the research draws on case studies and data from aviation authorities and industry reports. The findings of this study reveal that while outsourcing maintenance can yield economic benefits, it also introduces inherent risks to flight safety that demand careful consideration, even if it is not concluded that an outsourced maintenance causes more safety issues. The article underscores the importance of robust regulatory frameworks and stringent oversight mechanisms to ensure that outsourced maintenance operations adhere to the highest safety standards.

Intelligent Vision Based Decision Making System for Aviation Accidents and Incidents

Safety has become the primary concern for the air transportation system nowadays primarily due to increasing air traffic throughout the world. Various regulatory bodies have been maintaining enormous amount of aviation accidental data repositories. This past data is highly complex because of its many temporal and geographical components along with multiple variables. To be able to analyze this past data, there is always a need of user friendly and GUI based System. This article has proposed an intelligent vision-based decision-making system for the exploration of past aviation accidents and incidents dataset. The proposed visual query-based model is capable to analyse the major factors like flight phases, human factors, weather conditions and faulty components in particular aircraft models which are responsible for those unsafe events and may claim life of many passengers who are traveling and crew personnels. This model enables the users to express “what” visuals should be created instead of “how” to create them. Various case studies conducted through visual queries have proved that the system will be highly able to improve situational awareness regarding flight conditions to the crew members and air traffic controllers along with aviation authorities so that they are able to take timely decisions and deciding on what kind of training staff members need to reduce the consequences of such accidents and incidents.

Kajian Material Komposit Sandwich pada Floor Panel Pesawat Terbang

Sandwich composites have been used as lightweight materials in aircraft manufacturing for a long time, from balsa wood sandwich in the 1930s to honeycomb and fiber-reinforced polymers sandwich. Its characteristics are considered as a 'perfect' material for aircraft, which has high strength with low density. Sandwich composites are the common materials for aircraft floor panels. The core is usually made of Nomex or aluminum honeycomb, while the skin is made of 1 "“ 2 ply of carbon/glass fiber in epoxy resin composite. The core is usually constructed using the corrugating or expansion method, whilst the skins are usually constructed using the prepreg lay-up method. Both materials are combined together by a simple adhesive bonding. Being the most strictly regulated transportation method on the planet, floor panel manufacturers must abide by aircraft manufacturing companies and local aviation authority standards and specifications to ensure the product's safety. The purpose of this study is to determine the most used materials for aircraft floor panels and why is it widely used, to understand the manufacturing process, and to know the specifications and standards that need to be fulfilled.

Collision risk assessment between aircraft and obstacles in the areas surrounding airports

The topographical features of a site and the anthropogenic artefacts inside and outside the airport boundaries influence the infrastructure use. Objects penetrating the obstacle limitation surfaces (OLS) or standing outside those surfaces have to be mapped and risk-assessed because they could be a hazard to air navigation. This study aims to quantify the risk of collision between aircraft and obstacles in the airspace. There are no available procedures in the literature: the authors supposed that the obstacle type and the examined OLS affect the collision risk. The proposed risk values and amplification factors derive from interviews with technicians. The methodology has been implemented in an existing airport with 589 penetrating obstacles: the results highlight that 69.8% of obstacles imply a negligible risk, and 3.7% require further analyses by the competent aviation authority. In this study, buildings and pylons penetrating the Transitional Surface are the most hazardous obstacles.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Performance Appraisals on Employees Performance of Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA)

The evaluation of organizational performance by Human Resource Management (HRM) is crucial for various benefits. This includes enhancing operational efficiency, facilitating comprehensive communication, informing employment decisions, and developing personnel development strategies. This research attempts to determine how employee performance at the Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority (PCAA) is affected by PA (Performance Appraisal). The research takes into account a number of distinct variables, such as the evaluation's fairness, correctness, relationships with peers and supervisors, and appraised satisfaction. Employee performance is the dependent factor under consideration. According to statistical analysis, performance appraisal and employee performance results in PCAA are related. The results show that aside from the independent factor i.e. Fairness about appraisal (FPA) regarding the performance appraisal process in PCAA Employees and Performance appraisal satisfaction are not delighted with how fair the Appraisal process is of PCAA, however, it has partial significance and not significant in Employees Performance, remaining study variables are significant.

Flight Test Analysis of UTM Conflict Detection Based on a Network Remote ID Using a Random Forest Algorithm

In an area where unmanned aerial system (UAS) traffic is high, a conflict detection system is one of the important components for the safety of UAS operations. A novel UAS traffic management (UTM) monitoring application was developed, including a conflict detection system using the inverted teardrop area detection based on real-time flight data transmitted from the network remote identification (Remote ID) modules. This research aimed to analyze the performance of the UTM-monitoring application based on flight test data using statistical and machine learning approaches. The flight tests were conducted using several types of small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) controlled by a human pilot using a Taiwan cellular communication network in suburban and rural areas. Two types of scenarios that involved a stationary, on-the-ground intruder and a flying intruder were used to simulate a conflict event. Besides the statistical method calculating the mean and standard deviation, the random forest algorithm, including regressor and classifier modules, was used to analyze the flight parameters and timing parameters of the flight tests. The result indicates that the processing time of the UTM application was the most significant parameter to the conflict warning parameter, besides the relative distance and height between UAVs. In addition, the latency time was higher for the flight in the rural area than the suburban area and also higher for data transmitted from the flying position than the ground position. The findings of our study can be used as a reference for aviation authorities and other stakeholders in the development of future UTM systems.

NEW CHALLENGES IN THE OPERATION OF UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES. CHANGES IN LEGAL REGULATIONS REGARDING THE SAFETY OF UNMANNED AVIATION

The extremely dynamic development of civil aviation in recent years has simultaneously contributedto the growing popularity of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which have taken over air traffic inthe areas of protection and security of the population and, since the armed conflict in Ukraine, havealso been put to use as dual-use products in military operations. However, one must bear in mind alsousers who fly drones for private and recreational purposes. Such a rapid growth in interest caused thenecessity of introducing regulations that would enable their safe design, production, maintenanceand operation in the EU. Thanks to these requirements, the civil aviation authorities in the EU havemade every effort to create a solid legal framework for the operations of UAVs, keeping up with theirrapid technological development, minimizing accidents that involve flight participants and reducingthe risk of material damage or safety of bystanders present on the surface.The authors adopted the assumption that aviation safety regulations are excessively conservative.The first part of this hypothesis is not a revelation, the rule being that legal regulations are delayedin relation to the dynamics of technological progress in this field. The second is an open questionregarding the need for greater liberalization in the field of unmanned flights.

Aircraft overrun warning systems capabilities and disadvantages

Currently, attention of the aviation community and authorities is being increasingly focused on flight safety in the landing phase. It is accounted for the increased frequency of incidents in the final phase of flight and significant threats associated with the consequences of these events. The statistics of aviation accidents reveals that from 1959 to 2019, 55% of aircraft crashes in the world occurred in the phases of landing and takeoff. The given crashes resulted in 51% of all fatalities on board aircraft. In most cases, causes of these aviation accidents are involved with some kind of human error. Off-design conditions at an aerodrome also have a significant adverse effect on the aviation accident potential and severity. The increasing intensity of flights, airspace congestion, strict ATC-imposed restrictions, the necessity to perform a variety of procedures and general flight crew stress in conjunction with dynamically changing external conditions can disorient a flight crew and lead to a landing with a flight envelope overrange. The search for a solution in terms of preventing aircraft overruns is actively being conducted both by aviation authorities and aircraft manufacturers and operators. Within the framework of this review, the major external and operational factors, affecting the dynamics and the nature of the aircraft roll via the runway, are analyzed, including the context of several accidents that have occurred in recent years. In addition, the article emphasizes the methods to prevent and anticipate aircraft overruns based on the principles of active protection. In particular, the article examines the main operation aspects of onboard avionics systems installed on Boeing and Airbus aircraft and highlights the focus areas of their upgrading. Special attention is paid to the influence of the pilot and the possibility of taking his actions into account to predict an outcome of landing.