Airworthiness Integration Into Modern Systems Engineering for Complex Military Aircraft Systems

Airworthiness qualification for Army aircraft is the demonstration of an aircraft or aircraft subsystem or component, including modifications, to function satisfactorily when used and maintained within prescribed limits. The U.S. Army has traditionally qualified systems and components by physical testing, analysis, demonstration or by similarity. Historically, most systems were federated. They were hardware based, simple and distributed. Now they have become more integrated. They are more software intensive, complex and have combined functionality contained in one or more computers. MILSTD- 882 is the general overall safety standard for military systems with a variety of other military specifications/standards used for support; however, there is not a direct tie-in of airworthiness with system development and systems engineering processes. Civilian safety/airworthiness standards for the aviation industry include industry best practices, SAE ARP4754 and SAE ARP4761, which show the incorporation of system safety activities with the design process and provide guidance on techniques to insure a safe design. The coupling of these two ARPs, while not directly linked with systems engineering, provide a closer linkage for airworthiness qualification/certification than what is found in the military systems approach. Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field of engineering. It focuses on the development and organization of complex artificial systems. Systems engineering is defined by INCOSE as a branch of engineering whose responsibility is creating and executing an interdisciplinary process to ensure that customer and stakeholder's needs are satisfied in a high quality, trustworthy, cost efficient and schedule compliant manner throughout a system's entire life cycle, from development to operation to disposal. This paper will review military and civilian airworthiness standards, along with systems engineering methods, to propose a better Airworthiness Integration with Systems Engineering for Complex Military Aircraft Systems.