Certification of a Corporate Shuttle Aircraft Interior to Dynamic Occupant Protection Requirements: A Completion Center's Experience

In support of a Dornier 328 aircraft completion with a corporate shuttle interior, a test program to show compliance with the occupant injury criteria was undertaken. Three seating configurations were developed utilizing two occupant protection technologies. Component-level testing was successfully used to predict the performance of one occupant protection system.

Dynamic testing for injury purposes also indicated beneficial improvements to the seating system, including a change of the restraint system to a more reliable design.

“Lessons learned” from the dynamic testing experience are also reviewed. A novel method of using simple equipment to develop head trajectory information from filmed data was devised, and is explained.