Collision Risk Studies with 6DOF Flight Simulations when Aerodrome Obstacle Standards Cannot Be Met

This paper presents an e ective methodology to assess the safety of aircraft operations when aero- drome obstacle standards cannot be met. The re- search addresses the cases of potential airplane impact with on-ground obstacles after an engine failure. The discussion focuses on how statistical studies can be supported by deterministic analy- ses of flight trajectories generated with 6 degree- of-freedom (6DoF) flight simulations. The pro- posed approach is illustrated by introducing a practical example coming from the authors’ pro- fessional experience; in the selected scenario a hypothetical wind farm has to be located in prox- imity of an aerodrome but some of the wind tur- bines intrude the conventional airspace required by ICAO to ensure safe and regular aircraft op- erations. The paper presents the relevant safety requirements applicable around airports and in- troduces a preliminary evaluation technique of the theoretical collision risk (CR) based on the open source flight dynamics model (FDM) soft- ware JSBSim. Finally, a Monte Carlo analysis is presented as an additional step to refine the CR assessment.