Evaluation of COTS Solutions to Support Flight Operations Quality Assurance in Business/Corporate Aviation

During the period 2003~ 2011 worldwide accident rates for business/corporate aviation were nearly four times that for commercial aviation. Flight Operations Quality Assurance (FOQA) or Flight Data Monitoring (FDM) - the collection of real-time flight data for continuous safety improvement - has been routinely used by commercial aviation for over 50 years. Regulatory authorities only require airplanes over 27 tonnes Maximum Take-off Weight to operate a FOQA/FDM programme. Corporate/business aviation operators generally operate airplanes less than 20 tonnes using a diverse range of airplanes which may include a single engine, twin engine, turbo-prop and/or very light jets. This study investigates the use of low-cost, independent Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies utilising a combination of Global Positioning Systems (GPS) and Attitude Heading & Referencing Systems (AHRS) to sense and record key flight data parameters in support of a FOQA/FDM programme for corporate operators with diverse, lower weight category and legacy airplanes. The preliminary results suggest that independent COTS GPS/AHRS systems and EFIS systems (where installed) can usefully support FOQA/FDM for lower weight category and legacy airplanes.