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Future transport aircraft secondary power requirements can be expected to increase due to advancements that utilize additional pneumatic, hydraulic and electric power. This paper reviews the power requirement trends and suggests possible alternative approaches for future secondary power generation installations. Airline ideas and comments are solicited to enable early incorporation into technology development programs.

Douglas Aircraft Company (DAC) of Long Beach, California, uses a real-time development environment, the avionics evaluation facility (AEF), to develop new avionics systems for the MD-11 aircraft. The development environment includes a host computer, input/output (I/O) software/hardware interface, and avionics system. The I/O interface developed at DAC, the interface microcomputer system (IMS), is a highly developed, flexible, practical, reliable, and sophisticated system for interfacing the host computer to the avionics system. This paper describes the IMS from its historical background to its present configuration in the AEF environment.

Modern design practices for long-life aircraft and how they relate to the current aging aircraft fleet situation are presented. Concepts of the maintenance programs are also introduced along with means of modifying the program to protect the aircraft against the increased probability of fatigue and corrosion as the aircraft ages. Special programs by the manufacturer, such as extended fatigue testing and on-site aircraft evaluations, are discussed. The recent aging aircraft activities sponsored by the ATA and AIA are also examined.

The electromagnetic dent removal process removes dents from many aluminum structures where access is either limited to one surface (e.g., bonded aluminum honeycomb parts) or where access to the rear surface is restricted by equipment or other structures.

This paper examines the usefulness of the NASA Task Load Index (TLX), a multidimensional rating procedure, in subjectively assessing the overall aircrew workload. There is evidence that nothing is gained by using weighted averages from individual bipolar rating scales to generate a single rating for overall workload. A similar, reliable assessment can be developed from several of the individual bipolar rating scales. During a joint simulation study conducted by Douglas Aircraft Company and Boeing Commercial Airplanes, NASA-TLX scores were collected from pilots in simulated commercial transport operations. Both normal and emergency conditions were programmed to a Phase II certified B-727, six degree-of-freedom motion-base simulator. Correlation and factor analyses of the bipolar ratings were computed to determine the overlap of the different rating scales within the NASA-TLX.