The current state of international civilian (General Aviation) helicopter flight safety was perceived to be poor and without focus on the potential application of low-cost digital data acquisition devices to increase the quantity of flight data available for analysis, which could help identify issues leading to common incident and accident scenarios. The research project undertook a review of some of the common incident and accident scenarios, performed an analysis of the composition of the worldwide helicopter fleet and explored the interaction of operators, pilots, missions, and national aviation authorities, in order to understand and define the context for this study. Two radically different types of digital flight and event data recorders were then developed, which were considered appropriate for use in the most common small to medium sized helicopter types identified, in order to determine if reliable low-cost digital data acquisition was achievable. Also developed were software tools for extracting the recorded data sets and their processing/analysis. The proof of concept devices were flight tested, in a variety of environments by a number of helicopter operators and manufacturers in Europe and North America, in order to determine whether such simple devices actually returned useful flight data and in doing so contribute to improving flight safety by highlighting the occurrence of common issues. During the flight trials a number of real safety critical events were captured or observed, despite being flown for only a fraction of the time that would statistically elapse between incidents. Examination of the data sets revealed an abundance of information about pilot behaviour, which it will be argued substantiates the widely held belief that most accidents are caused by pilot error or negligence. It will be asserted that these results demonstrate that real improvements in training and flight safety can be achieved through the wide spread use of such proof of concept devices and their associated software tools. The international helicopter community has subsequently expressed a strong desire for such devices to become common place in small to medium sized helicopters.

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Cynthia E. Irvine, Scott Cote. Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-171). Also available online.

M. Tech. (Engineering: Electrical; Department of Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology )-- Vaal University of Technology / In the ever growing sport of model aircraft, pilots are challenged with many obstacles. In the division of gliders, one of the biggest problems is the loss of model aircraft. Pilots launch their aircraft off mountain tops and if the aircraft crashes below, the pilot must make use of his best estimates in order to locate the aircraft. This either takes several hours, or the aircraft is never recovered. Pilots are also at a loss with regard to real time data, such as, but not limited to, battery levels, fuel levels, altitude and speed. Model aircraft competitions are also limited to the best estimate of officials. In this work an attempt has been made to design and develop a remote tracking device for model aircraft. This device will retrieve Global Positioning System (GPS) co-ordinates from the aircraft and relay them to the pilot on the ground. In the event of a crash, the pilot will retrieve the last GPS co-ordinates and then proceed to the location to collect the aircraft. An attempt will also be made to design add-on telemetry components that will allow for measurement and transmission of battery levels, fuel levels, altitude, G-Force, orientation, acceleration, wind and ground speed. Some of the data retrieved from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) in trial 1 are: maximum altitude above sea level of 2139.20 m, maximum speed over ground which was 57.34 m/s and the average battery voltage for transceiver and servos was 15.2 v.