Problem: Why did the pilots do that? Human error is a reasonably common retrospective assignment of responsibility tied to undesirable aeronautical safety occurrences. Although retributive justice has long been accepted in aviation, its effectiveness in preventing recurrence is minimal. Airmen tend to decide based on their best knowledge with the available resources in intrinsically fallible systems in the ultra-safe high-risk aviation industry.

Method and Results: This paper sheds light on Safety as Capacity under the vanguardist Safety-II perspective and examines procedures as static tools incapable of sustaining safety. It discusses the prejudice in non-critical adherence to procedural compliance beyond creating bureaucratic work environments permissible to sanction workers against regulations. Disputing the safety gain in a retrospective analysis of mishaps, the paper instils the airmen as solution elements to sustain safety at the management of context, a fundamental aspect of Safety-II.

Impact on Industry: A systemic deficiency in civilian pilot training is exposed, and an independent organisational Safety Capacity assessment tool to air operations is provided. The main debate is the synergetic interaction between aircrew’s aeronautical decision-making skills and organisational Safety-II as safety capacity. The pilot’s preparedness to analyse, create and evaluate outside forecasted protocols in modern aviation environments is discussed. These dynamics are revised in their inter-reliability known as Safety as Capacity.

The objective of this paper is to present the movement mechanisms of transport aircraft response to severe clear-air turbulence to obtain the loss of control prevention for pilot training in IATA – Loss of Control In-flight (LOC-I) program. The transport aircraft in transonic flight is subjected to severe clear-air turbulence, resulting in a sudden plunging motion with the abrupt change in flight attitude and gravitational acceleration. The comparative analyses of the flight environment and aircraft response to severe clear-air turbulence for two four-jet aircraft are studied. The one with a larger dropped-off altitude during the plunging motion will be chosen to construct the movement mechanism. The nonlinear unsteady aerodynamic model of the chosen transport is established through flight data mining and the fuzzy-logic modeling of artificial intelligence technique based on post-flight data. The crosswind before the turbulence encounter will easily induce a rolling motion and then the sudden plunging motion during the turbulence encounter. The influences of the varying vertical wind and crosswind on loss of control are presented. To formulate preventive actions, the situation awareness of varying crosswind encountering for the operational pilot will be studied further in the future. The present study is initiated to examine the possible mitigation concepts of accident prevention for the pilot training course of IATA – Loss of Control In-flight (LOC-I) program.

In some small airports, a parallel taxiway is not built due to space restrictions or financial issues; hence, the runway itself is often used as a taxiway in this type of airport. After touch down, aircraft move to the U-turn area at the end of the runway and turn 180 degrees, then move back to the desired point, such as a gate or the apron, using the runway. The runway is blocked to other arrivals and departures during this process. This process, called backtrack or back-taxi, can result in high delays for both arrivals and departures. Runway occupancy times (ROTs) vary depending on numerous conditions, including pilot performance, weather conditions, aircraft type, etc. Although there are speed restrictions and procedures announced in advance, the actual performance can be uncertain. In addition, most aircraft can make a U-turn as soon as they sufficiently reduce their speed before they reach the U-turn area especially if they are already delayed. These situations bring enormous uncertainties for traffic management at such an airport. Controllers may need help to sequence aircraft, particularly in busy traffic. In this study, a stochastic mathematical model is developed to sequence arrival/departure operations at such an airport considering the ROT uncertainties of arrivals. The objective function of the developed model is determined as the minimisation of the total delay. ROT data was obtained by observing radar tracks of 120 arriving flights. Reasonable ROT scenarios with various probabilities to represent ROT uncertainties were integrated into the mathematical modeling. In addition, two different sequencing approaches are presented as well as the first come first serve (FCFS) approach. As a result, the proposed stochastic approach provides robust sequences applicable for all ROT scenarios with significant delay savings up to an average of 18.4% and 39.5% compared to deterministic and FCFS approaches, respectively.

Flight crews’ capacity to conduct take-off and landing in near zero visibility conditions has been partially addressed by advanced surveillance and cockpit display technology. This capability is yet to be realised within the context of manoeuvring aircraft within airport terminal areas. In this paper the performance and workload benefits of user-centre designed visual and haptic taxi navigational cues, presented via a head-up display (HUD) and active sidestick, respectively, were evaluated in simulated taxiing trials by 12 professional pilots. In addition, the trials sought to examine pilot acceptance of side stick nose wheel steering. The HUD navigational cues demonstrated a significant task-specific benefit by reducing centreline deviation during turns and the frequency of major taxiway deviations. In parallel, the visual cues reduced self-report workload. Pilot’s appraisal of nose wheel steering by sidestick was positive, and active sidestick cues increased confidence in the multimodal guidance construct. The study presents the first examination of how a multimodal display, combining visual and haptic cues, could support the safety and efficiency in which pilots are able to conduct a taxi navigation task in low-visibility conditions.

A multiple-vehicles time-coordination guidance technique based on deep learning is suggested to address the cooperative guiding problem of hypersonic gliding vehicle entry phase. A dual-parameter bank angle profile is used in longitudinal guiding to meet the requirements of time coordination. A vehicle trajectory database is constructed along with a deep neural network (DNN) structure devised to fulfill the error criteria, and a trained network is used to replace the conventional prediction approach. Moreover, an extended Kalman filter is constructed to detect changes in aerodynamic parameters in real time, and the aerodynamic parameters are fed into a DNN. The lateral guiding employs a logic for reversing the sign of bank angle, which is based on the segmented heading angle error corridor. The final simulation results demonstrate that the built DNN is capable of addressing the cooperative guiding requirements. The algorithm is highly accurate in terms of guiding, has a fast response time, and does not need inter-munition communication, and it is capable of solving guidance orders that satisfy flight requirements even when aerodynamic parameter disruptions occur.

Robust control of non-linear systems is a challenging task, notably in the presence of external disturbances and uncertain parameters. The main focus of this paper is to solve the trajectory tracking problem of an unconventional quadrotor with rotating arms (also known as a foldable drone), while overcoming some of the challenges associated with this type of vehicle. Therefore, in a first step, the model of this vehicle is presented, taking into account the change of the inertia, the centre of gravity, and the control matrix. The theoretical foundations of backstepping control, based on the finite time Lyapunov stability theory and enhanced by a Super-Twisting algorithm, are then discussed. Numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the efficiency of the suggested control approach. Finally, a qualitative and quantitative comparative study of the proposed controller with the conventional backstepping controller is performed. Overall, the obtained results show that the proposed control strategy outperforms in terms of accuracy and resilience.

For a hypersonic-speed aircraft with a flat fuselage structure that has narrow space for a traditional wheel-type landing gear retraction, a novel type of wheel-ski landing gear is designed, which is different from traditional landing gears in force distribution and actuation methods. In order to capture the direction control performance of an aircraft with the wheel-ski landing gear, the aircraft ground taxiing nonlinear dynamic mathematical model is built based on a certain type of aircraft data. The experiment of the wheel-ski landing gear actuator and the differential brake control system is carried out to verify that the electric wheel-ski actuator model with the pressure sensor is in good agreement with the test results, indicating the model validity and the speediness of the differential brake response. Then a new fuzzy combined direction rectifying control law is designed based on the optimisation method and the fuzzy control theory. Comparing with the PD wheel-ski differential brake control, the direction rectifying efficiencies increase higher than 140% during the whole taxiing process. In addition, the combined control law can also decrease the overshoots of the yaw angle responses effectively. Finally, the stability and robustness of the designed combined direction control law are verified under various working conditions.

In this study, the aerodynamic performances and the flow separation behaviour of the wing profiles, used in the wing of Boeing 737-Classic aircraft, and a model wing formed of these profiles were investigated at 2 × 105 Reynolds number (Re) and different angles of attack ranging from −4° to the angle, which maximum lift point obtained. The experiments were conducted in a low-speed wind tunnel in Erciyes University Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aerodynamic Laboratory. Four profiles and the model wing, which was obtained from the combination of the four profiles were produced in a rectangular shape with dimensions of 0.21m × 0.21m. In the first part of this two-part study, the wing profiles were examined individually regarding aerodynamic performance and flow separation. In the second phase of the study, the aerodynamic performance and the flow separation behaviour of the model wing were examined and the results were compared with the data obtained from each profile. The study results showed that the slopes of the numerical graphics are generally quite consistent with experimental results. In addition, the pressure and velocity distributions have followed the normal trend until the angle-of-attack (AoA) of 20°. In contrast, the negative speed values and negative pressure zones have appeared on the profile above this angle. The air flowed as laminar on the profiles and the model wing until 20°, while laminar separation bubbles are begun to take place at about 24° AoA. Finally, the best aerodynamic performance has been obtained with the model wing.