THE INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE FOR THE AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE INDUSTRY

whitePaper | November 8, 2019

The use cases for Inflight Connectivity are manifold. Market research suggests that 90% of passengers would like to connect, but less than 10% do so, as fees are high, and performance is poor. In the cabin, online credit card verification would eliminate fraud, and qualified medical assistance from the ground would avoid unnecessary diversions. Flight crews could optimize their flight path based on real time weather updates. Aircraft systems could report the need for maintenance and trigger ground crews accordingly, so that ground times can be minimized, and resources be used most efficiently. The ever-increasing demand for Inflight Connectivity is driven by several factors: the continued growth of airline passenger traffic, which is expected to double by 2035; 5-10 times higher passenger take rates of cabin Wi-Fi services than today; the amount of data generated by modern aircraft systems, which has already surpassed 1 Terabyte per flight just for the engines; other aerial vehicles that require connectivity for mission accomplishment, for example, police and rescue helicopters; and finally manned and unmanned drones (eVTOLs), which are expected to proliferate in the next decade.

whitePaper | December 15, 2022

The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 was the most significant disruption ever encountered by the aerospace industry. Nations locked down, flights were cancelled and aircraft were parked and stored. The exceptional scope and speed of the pandemic affected each industry segment: airline, MRO, OEM, vendor and lessor.

whitePaper | January 26, 2022

Aviation is a hard-to-decarbonize sector of the transport industry due to the stringent mass and volume requirements for aviation fuel. The high energy content of liquid jet fuel, both per unit mass (specific energy) and per unit volume (energy density), makes it difficult to replace. Significant emphasis has been placed on drop-in Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) to reduce emissions without sacrificing aircraft performance. But SAFs emit carbon dioxide (CO2) when combusted (carbon capture during production reduces life-cycle emissions) and their uptake has fallen short of expectations due to their high cost, limited supply, and concerns about the land-use impacts of biofuels.

whitePaper | August 28, 2022

The airline flight deck is one of the most coveted workplaces, as can be attested to by the more than 100,000 pilots in the United States and Canada who work hard and sacrifice to earn a seat at the controls of a transport category airline aircraft. However, despite the attractiveness of an airline pilot career, the flight deck environment is very industrial in nature and can be the source of serious injuries and longterm health issues. As such, it needs protections for pilots that are commonly found in other industries. This white paper explores the various types of health and safety risks found on the flight deck and in the aircraft cabin and provides recommendations on ways to address identified inadequacies across a wide range of topics and health threats. These inadequacies need to be addressed by federal agencies charged with establishment and enforcement of rules and policies designed to protect airline pilots while carrying out their duties at work.

whitePaper | January 30, 2023

Used widely across applications within industries such as aerospace, automotive and alternative energy, carbonfiber reinforced polymer composites offer excellent mechanical properties, especially strength-to-weight and stiffness-to-weight ratios. While light-weighting is a notable advantage of composite parts, the production costs have historically been higher per kilogram than components designed using metals/alloys.

whitePaper | February 15, 2022

The perspective of a “self-healing” aircraft is still a distant one even if some of the edge research in self-diagnostics and self-repair of complex structures is bringing such aircraft of the future out of the Science Fiction realm and closer to aviation attainable goals. In this context, the first step to ensure the desired technical availability of the aircraft is to set-up an appropriate maintenance activity, which is focused on and supports the airworthiness, technical capability and performance of each aircraft, as demanded by the airline’s operation schedule.