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“As we handle more operations and passengers in the air, we must make certain we have the capacity to handle increased traffic on the ground.” - Jane Garvey, FAA Administrator (4/20/98) The FAA Technical Center (Aviation System Analysis and Modeling Branch, ACT-520) has been responsive to the FAA Airport Capacity Program customers for the past 22 years, developing, testing, and applying airfield and airspace simulation models. More than 90 capacity studies have been completed with ACT-520 personnel contributing their technical expertise to the Airport Design Teams. The teams are comprised of FAA personnel, airport operators, air carriers, other airport users and aviation industry representatives at major airports throughout the US. Initial studies focused on modeling airport operations from final approach, taxi, gate operations and departure processing. Later in the program, local airspace studies were included in some airport study efforts.

A 10-foot-long fuselage section from a Boeing 737-100 airplane was dropped from a height of 14 feet generating a final impact velocity of 30 feet per second. The fuselage section was configured to simulate the load density at the maximum takeoff weight condition. The final weight of 8870 pounds included cabin seats, dummy occupants, overhead stowage bins with contents, and cargo compartment luggage. The fuselage section was instrumented with strain gages, accelerometers, and high-speed cameras. The fuselage sustained severe deformation of the cargo compartment. The luggage influenced the manner in which the fuselage crushed, affecting the gravitational (g) forces experienced by the test section. The seat tracks experienced 15 g's vertical deceleration. Although numerous fuselage structural members fractured during the test, a habitable environment was maintained for the occupants, and the impact was considered survivable.

Voice communications are crucial to safe and efficient air traffic operations. Controllers are required to use standard phraseology, and pilots are encouraged to use it when talking to controllers. Incomplete or inaccurate communications were implicated in mishaps such as the Tenerife accident. This research examined the frequency of phraseology deviations in a sample of 5,000 transmissions from 3 terminal facilities. The Aviation Topics-Speech Acts Taxonomy (ATSAT) was used to develop baseline data and analyze controller/pilot communications. Clearance instructions were transmitted most frequently and they contained a higher percentage of deviations from standard phraseology than any other speech act category. Identification of the types of errors typically associated with specific miscommunications could result in implementing new training approaches that ensure a higher compliance with standard procedures and improve standard phraseology usage.

The crash impact characteristics of commuter category airplanes has recently been established using empirical procedures based on full scale aircraft impact test data for a range of aircraft sizes[1]. To compliment that empirical approach the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) initiated a full scale commuter category airplane vertical impact test program. Those airplane vertical impact tests were structured to evaluate the airframe's capability to maintain its structural integrity and provide a protective shell for its occupants, to quantify the acceleration impact response characteristics of the airframe, and to evaluate the means necessary to provide occupant pelvic/lumbar column load injury protection up to the limits of survivable impact conditions.

The need to improve the efficiency and capacity of the Air Traffic Control and Navigation System has placed greater emphasis on the functional integration of subsystems which have been treated independently in the past. This paper presents results of limited test programs designed to explore the relationship of terminal area navigation and the air traffic control system, and to show the benefits of an optimum combination of both functions. The need for further analysis is indicated with respect to carrying out the third generation system design postulated by the DOT Air Traffic Control Advisory Committee. It is concluded that functional integration of ATC and navigation in the terminal area presents the greatest challenge. In other areas, such as enroute, the availability of new, integrated avionics systems provides an expanded operational capability.

The present regulatory tool for assessment of aircraft smoke emission, the Ringelmann Chart, is described; some of the shortcomings associated with its use for aircraft are discussed; research and development efforts to improve on this system are described. The gaseous pollutants, their relative importance in an airport area and research underway or needed is also discussed.

Area navigation offers a means of establishing an air route system without the constraints entailed in flying toward or away from the signal source. In terminal areas, an area navigation system of routes, combined with ATC computer-aided sequencing and airborne collision-avoidance technology, offers possibilities for establishing future methods of moving high volumes of traffic on and off a complex of multiple parallel runways. Such a system would reduce air-ground communications and controller workloads which are serious limiting factors in today's system. In the en route system, the use of area navigation will result in more efficient utilization of airspace, although regimentation of traffic will continue to be necessary in areas of high traffic density. An area navigation system, based on VOR/DME inputs is possible in the near future.

Materials are available for preventing or retarding aircraft cabin fires involving urethane foam seat cushions. Realistic fire tests performed in a wide-body test article demonstrate that some in-flight and ramp fires can be prevented, and that the allowable time for safe evacuation can be significantly extended during a survivable postcrash fuel fire, when the urethane foam seat cushion is covered by a “blocking layer” material.

A transport airplane fuselage section with a full complement of cabin seats and anthropomorphic test dummies was longitudinally impact tested at a condition that approached the ultimate strength of the airframe protective shell structure. Airframe structural responses, seat/floor reaction loads, and the interactive effects of secondary impacts between multiple cabin seat rows were investigated. The scope and conduct of the test are presented together with some preliminary analyses of the test results.

Since the first airplane was certified in 1927, the standard configuration has been with the main lifting surface or surfaces forward of the stabilizing surface. Although some of the advantages of the canard configuration were recognized quite early - by the Wright Brothers, for example - canard surfaces have been used to date only as additional control surfaces on some military airplanes, and on some amateur built airplanes. As a result, the Airworthiness Regulations of Reference 1 address only tail aft configurations. When FAA was first approached regarding certification of a canard configured small airplane, an FAA/Industry Empennage Loads Working Group was formed to develop technical proposals for the necessary rule changes and policy. The concerns addressed by this working group are discussed in the following sections.

One Engine Inoperative takeoff climb performance of the XV-15 tilt rotor aircraft was analytically determined from level flight data and compared to the proposed powered-lift aircraft criteria. The results of this analysis can be useful in establishing the takeoff profile and highlighting potential certification issues.

Average continuous flow rates for each type of aircraft exit were examined in 89 full-scale evacuation demonstrations. Passengers tend to form continuous lines at available exits when evacuating an airplane. The study concludes that, with rare exception, the passenger rates of egress from the same type exit on different make and model airplanes are not significantly different. Passenger cabin configuration, seat pitch, and aisle width have no significant bearing on the egress rates provided the aircraft certification requirements for minimum aisle width and exit accessibility are met. Injuries resulting from actual emergency evacuations and evacuation demonstrations are also examined.