22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-5.11.1

SYSTEMS ENGINEERING IN MARKETING & ECONOMICS OF AERO ENGINES

R. Dixon, L. Doukas
FG Dixon Group & RMIT University, Australia

Keywords: 1990 clean air act (usa), aero engines, aircraft categories, aircraft fleet composition, aircraft utilisation factors, avgas, avtur, emission control, engine retrofit, engine types, general aviation, holistic, hush kits, leaded avgas, lifecycle, lifecycle costing, mogas, montreal protocol, naturally aspirated, needs definition, noise control, noise pollution, propulsion issues, propulsion system, systematic, systems engineering, tip vortex noise, turbocharged, turboprop, unleaded avgas

Today's general aviation aircraft are being retained in services well beyond the lifecycle anticipated by their manufacturers. While some airframe aerodynamic refinements can be applied to improve performance, available engine technology is stuck in the pre 1950s. This lack of advancement is failing to meet modern environmental requirements particularly regarding fuel efficiency, noise and air pollution, as well as the overdue elimination of leaded fuels. This paper is concerned with the application of Systems Engineering (SE) methodology to the need for maintaining, upgrading/retrofitting the world’s GA aircraft, and more particularly their engines. Discussions in this paper focus on using SE techniques to define needs that leads to optimising the confidence and predict-ability of forecast demand.

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