Aircraft Survivability Rating

Sikorsky Aircraft and the US Army's Aviation Development Directorate - Aviation Applied Technology Directorate (ADD–AATD), as part of the co-funded Combat Tempered Aircraft Demonstration (CTPD), have developed a new methodology to rate aircraft survivability in a hostile environment. The new rating system incorporates combat reports to expand upon current vulnerability analyses used to evaluate an aircraft's ability to survive a hostile attack. The current method of evaluating an aircraft only takes into account one threat per analysis and does not accommodate combat statistics for attack outcomes. The new methodology uses actual aircraft combat data to make the analysis inclusive of multiple threats and the effects of combat on aircraft. This new method of analysis is not only applicable to fielded aircraft, but can also be applied to future aircraft and the development of survivability requirements. It improves the design process for developmental aircraft by considering what threats are expected to be encountered, while still applying the benefits from traditional vulnerability analyses.