This paper gives a status report and describes the future work directions of a systematic research effort to develop and validate methods for structural sizing of an airframe designed with the use of composite materials and active controls. This research program includes procedures for computing aeroelastic loads, static and dynamic aeroelasticity, analysis and synthesis of active controls, and...

The Human Factors Analysis and Classification System (HFACS) was used to classify maintenance-related general aviation accidents in the United States from 1990 to 2000 inclusive. The analysis revealed that among the maintainers, skill-based errors were most frequent cause of accidents, followed by violations committed by both professional maintainers and owneroperators. Furthermore, violations ...

This paper summarizes the effort funded by the United States Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base to identify the problem structural areas on the F-15 and recommend appropriate solutions with the development of new technology. Recent modifications to the F-15 airframe structure have taken place or are under consideration to reduce honeycomb water corrosion, reduce ma...

The author reviews 52 personally investigated fatal light aircraft accidents involving 8 professional pilots and 44 private pilots. In 22 of the 52 accidents the presence of any pre-crash defect or malfunction of airframe, engine, or flying controls was definitely excluded. In the opinion of the author there was a "pilot-induced" factor in 35 (69.3%) of the 52 fatal accidents. The author discus...

This paper presents the design, implementation and characterization of a rectenna array for wireless powering of sensor electronics for airframe fatigue detection. The rectenna aperture is powered 5 minutes at a time during inspection with a requirement of ±15V at 100mW. The maximum incident RF power is 10mW/cm. A single rectenna element at this incident power density has an output power of 5 m...