21st Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Melbourne, Australia, 13-18 September, 1998
Paper ICAS-98-6.7.4

DETERMINATION OF FLIGHT-SAFETY RATES AND EXAMINATION OF THEIR VARIATIONS WITH TIME IN CORRELATION TO RELIABILITY RATES

Lewitowicz J., Urbanski M.*
Air Force Institute of Technology, Poland; *Ministry of National Defence, Poland

Keywords: flight-safety rates, correlation, reliability rates

The problem of defining and formulating the rates of flight safety and reliability for aircraft (i.e. airplanes and helicopters) is in practice, and quite often, governed by criteria of effectiveness. While solving this problem, economic issues are taken into consideration. The essential idea is to look for optimum solutions, the most advantageous ones that take account of the following factors: safety, reliability, life, availability, and cost of implementation, i.e. of manufacturing and operating the aircraft. Examination of the level (state) of flight safety and reliability of aeronautical systems has to be carried out in the course of long-term periods, with changes in both the system's environment and the intensity of operating it taken into account. Essential considerations included into this paper refer to the air force mainly. Notifiable air accidents, i.e. fatalities (crashes) and failures have been used to illustrate our considerations.

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