U.S. Army helicopter maintenance condition is affected by operation environment and high flight hours. Due to the environmental conditions and high operation tempo of Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. Army Aviation created the RESET aviation maintenance program to provide restorative maintenance following deployments in theater. The RESET maintenance program was created in addition to the existing two-level maintenance programs. Following deployment, RESET is a thorough cleaning to remove contaminants, inspection of airframe and components, and repair cycle to restore the condition of the helicopter to acceptable condition. Based on the original intent of RESET, it was projected that at the conclusion of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the RESET maintenance program could be discontinued. Because of the presumed safety, reliability, and mission readiness created by RESET, this thesis appraised the RESET maintenance program as a permanent addition to U.S. Army Aviation maintenance programs. The hypothesis was that RESET does improve safety, reliability, and mission readiness of the Army UH-60 Black Hawk fleet. The design was a quantitative survey of three variables: safety, reliability, and mission readiness. The survey featured Likert scale and open-ended questions of three groups: UH-60 maintenance test pilots, UH-60 AVUM/AVIM maintenance supervisory personnel, and ACE (Airframe Condition Evaluation) technical evaluators. Data from each of the three survey groups verified the hypothesis that RESET improved safety, reliability, and mission readiness. Data from open-ended questions indicated that the additional disassembly and special inspections of RESET are more extensive than the aviation unit and intermediate Phased Maintenance Inspection (PMI). Therefore, given the disassembly and special inspections of RESET, and the verification that RESET improves safety, reliability, and mission readiness, it was concluded that RESET is a successful program that should be continued. Based on the effectiveness of RESET in discovering these deficiencies, RESET should be a permanent addition to the Army aviation maintenance programs.

For decades, elite athletes have used mental skills training to enhance their performance. The effectiveness of these skills and strategies have been measured, documented and supported in research (e.g., Feltz & Landers, 1983; Vealey, 1994). As the remarkable benefits of mental skills continue to reach an ever-growing community of performers, it is surprising that many military organizations, known for their high standards for performance and little tolerance for error, have yet to take full advantage of this type of training. Canada’s Air Force (CAF), home to a world-renowned pilot training program, now finds itself seeking additional tools to empower pilots to achieve consistent, high quality performance under demanding, high stress conditions. The purpose of this research was to explore the psychological skills used by elite Canadian military pilots to perform successfully in this highly demanding occupation. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted with elite Canadian pilots at a CAF base in Saskatchewan. Results indicated that pilots utilized all seven elements of Orlick’s (2008) Wheel of Excellence over three phases of flight: pre-flight preparation, mission execution, and post-flight debriefs. Pilots also drew on elements of the Wheel of Excellence during deployments to combat zones. Effective stress management played an especially important role in this context. Recommendations for future research include mental skills usage and preparation specific to deployment contexts as well as the implementation of a specific, relevant mental skills training program within the existing CAF pilot training program

Visualising uncertainty information has been a research area for the past decade or so, and this thesis contains the results of an experiment that examines whether prior research on icon degradation for showing uncertainty can be used in a simulated aircraft cockpit environment. Using icon degradation has been suggested as being effective to combat overconfidence bias, as well as to accurately convey information about uncertainty. Two icon sets using icon degradation were taken from prior research, and one new icon set using shape change and colour change was created for comparison. Subjects flew a flight simulator while reading icons to evaluate the uncertainty displayed, and also evaluating their own confidence in their reading. The results show that shape change leads to much higher accuracy in reading icons, and slightly higher levels of confidence. Furthermore, icon degradation results in a higher variance in reading icons and an increase in errors when no time-pressure or distraction is present. This suggests that the suitability of icon degradation for showing uncertainty is questionable in all situations, and that other design approaches such as shape change should be considered. Furthermore, problems were uncovered in the prior research that the old icons were taken from, and these problems call into question the general approach used in that research. Keywords: Uncertainty visualisation, Naturalistic decision-making, NDM, Aviation, Aircraft cockpit, Decision support, Situation assessment, Threat assessment.

This thesis outlines the development of Royal Flying Corpss (RFC) training programme from 1912 to 1918. It is based largely on archival sources from the National Archives and Imperial War Museum (London) and the Bundesarchiv (Freiburg, Germany). It considers the changes to the theoretical, practical and in-flight instruction methods used by the Royal Flying Corps. Within this discussion it analyzes the difficulties encountered by the RFC while attempting to train their aviators. It argues that initially the training programme was a detriment to British war effort in the air, as many pilots entered combat without sufficient training. This, however, was not the result of a flawed training regimen. Actually, the RFC training programme remained in tune with the realities of the war over the Western Front. The problems encountered by the RFC were largely the result of the circumvention or ignorance of the training programme by instructors. Nevertheless, British pilot training improved as the war went on both theoretically and practically and ultimately became more efficient than the training programmes in France and Germany. It pays special attention to the use of dual-control aircraft for the purposes of training and the positive effects these changes had on the British war effort. It also touches on some thematic issues such as gender, individuality, modernity and technology.

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Safety is very important for our society. In contrast, it is hard to define what this term really means. Nevertheless, one area that is considered important for safety involves accident prevention. Many methods exist within this area which aims at preventing accidents from happening. One accident prevention method is called ‘The Safety Scanning Tool (SST)’. The study conducted in this thesis aimed at exploring whether the SST could improve the safety understanding of experts from the domain of aviation. The term ‘safety understanding’, as it is used in this thesis, refers to the understanding of central scientific concepts underlying safety. These concepts relate to the area of accident prevention and they were the results of a literature study on safety. Thus, the safety understanding was addressed on two levels of abstraction. The first general abstraction level concerned the basic assumptions for studying an organization’s safety culture relating to Schein’s (1992) framework cited by Guldenmund (2000). This relates to the area of accident prevention in a more general way. The second more specific abstraction level regarded 21 different safety issues important for accident prevention. These originated from the area of resilience engineering. Furthermore, this study was structured as a field experiment using a pre-post test and a within-group design.  In order to measure the different experts’ safety understanding, the data were gathered with the help of two surveys before and after the experts’ used the SST. The SST was applied to two groups of experts. In the first group, they were six people, and, in the second 16. The questions in the surveys were created with the help of the above mentioned literature study on safety. The results were analyzed with the help of the statistics program SPSS. In addition, the results were analyzed with the help of sources from academic literature. These were used in order to determine whether there was an improvement of the safety understanding or not. Based on the results from this study, it can be concluded that undergoing the SST caused several improvements of the experts’ safety understanding. These improvements were found in both groups of experts and on both abstraction levels of the safety understanding. However, one result relating to the basic assumption level in the second group of experts could be interpreted both as an improvement and as a decrease of the safety understanding. The results of this study indicate not only that the SST has the ability to detect safety problems in an early state, before they can develop to the outcome of an accident. It has also the ability to enhance its user’s safety understanding relating to factors important for accident prevention.

This thesis is based on ¡§Socialism of Chinese Characteristics¡¨which discusses development of civil aviation in China and strategies for Taiwan¡¦s aviation sectors to participate in China¡¦s aviation market. ¡§Socialism of Chinese Characteristics¡¨ have become a theory system which integrates from each general secretary¡¦s core policies of Communist Party of China. The theory is still reconstructing according to the development of a changing Chinese society. ¡§Socialism of Chinese Characteristics¡¨ has guided government¡¦s overall policies in every aspect of development which maintain economic growth as prime purpose by implementing market economy¡¦s strength and keeping the country and society under severe control that shows specialty of openness and tight regulation of its political and economy system. The incremental growth of ¡§Socialism of Chinese Characteristics¡¨ is then an important guideline to look at the future development of civil aviation in China. The civil aviation industry in China itself has already gone through administrative reform, deregulation of civil aviation, lax regulation on foreign direct investment, etc. which enormously changed civil aviation¡¦s system of management and operation since the ¡§Reform and Opening Up¡¨, the process has in turn led Chinese government take civil aviation as a unique industry that fits into China¡¦s macro-contexts of political, social, and economic plans on regional economic development, multi-model transport system, high-end technology and foreign policy adjustment. Civil aviation in China now incrementally march to ¡§Open Skies¡¨ policy under Chinese government¡¦s support and propel China¡¦s civil aviation as a heavyweight not only in East Asia but also in global perspective by constructing ¡§hub and spoke¡¨ system that aims to reach china¡¦s long term goal of becoming an aviation superpower. During this critical time, China would absorb modern management model, aviation technology and foreign investment by co-operating with global players and reaching global standards in every aspect in order to enhance sound development of China¡¦s civil aviation. Taiwan¡¦s aviation sectors at this juncture then could use current traffic rights and contents of bilateral agreements with mainland China to both open up mainland China¡¦s aviation market and serve as supplier of mainland China¡¦s whole aviation system in which Taiwan¡¦s actors could invest on related industries, aggrandize it¡¦s aviation performance so that both parties could benefits from each other and that is key element for Taiwan¡¦s aviation sectors to stand firmly on Asia Pacific market.

¡@After 2000, China started to research and to develop the ARJ21 Regional Jet and civil aviation industry, China put the civil aviation industry as the Emerging Industries of Strategic Importance and wished to drive the Chinese industrial structure upgrading. In addition, Chinese government is working on the constructions of regional aviation networks as well. Moreover Chinese government provides the subsidy policy to accelerate regional development and supply the basic aviation services. The regional aviation is the intersection of aviation industry and transport industry. It has great significance for China¡¦s political, economic and social development. ¡@This thesis is trying to explore the main significance to the regional aviation industry of China¡¦s politics, economy and society. Observing China¡¦s current difficulties, China faced by the development of the regional aviation industry. And this thesis will use the industrial policy as the main theory to analysis that when China facing those difficulties, the industrial policy can really help the government to solve those problems and reach the goals that Chinese government has expected. ¡@After research, China¡¦s domestic regional aviation market exists a market failure situation. Also, the civil aviation industry has to face the competition of the technical deficiencies and foreign manufacturers, both of them need the government¡¦s assistances. Actually, the government¡¦s role is much weaker, and can¡¦t really help airline industries to reduce deficit in a difficult environment, so the government needs to invest much more resources. ¡@However, Chinese regional aviation industrial policies are not really failed. Nowadays, the aviation industry has been totally changed, it reached not only the technical skills which China¡¦s government pursued, but also reached the goal that v upgraded the industrial structure. Therefore we can¡¦t arbitrary thinks that Chinese regional aviation industrial policies are failure, but it really shows the limitation of the policies. How to overcome the limitations of the industrial policies is the greatest challenge that Chinese government has to face for.

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In this thesis, risk management methods are investigated in order to integrate risk management practices into the Turkish Aerospace industry. The research presents the sequence of risk management processes as identification of risk, analysis of risk, risk planning etc. Risk analysis methods named as Risk Ranking and Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) are investigated in order to improve reliability and safety of the systems or processes in the aerospace industry. The main aim of using risk ranking and AHP together is to translate the knowledge in the Turkish Aviation Industry to a tangible form with a quantitative approach and to prepare a basis for probabilistic risk analysis. Instrument Landing System (ILS) has been considered only in order to facilitate a demonstration how risk management can be done in this context. This study investigates and seeks to create awareness for risk management practices within Turkish Aviation industry.