Date of Award

Spring 2024

Access Type

Thesis - Open Access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Aviation

Department

College of Aviation

Committee Chair

Michael D. New

First Committee Member

Barbara Holder

College Dean

Alan J. Stolzer

Abstract

With the mandate of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) going into effect at the start of 2020, commercial companies have been able to log and store information on aircraft identification, airspeed, heading, and altitude all in one database.to Now, anyone can access previously hard-to-obtain flight data for analysis using a commercially available database. While ADS-B provides information on “what is happening,” information on “why” flight crews operate aircraft in a certain way is not incorporated into ADS-B.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) collects reports written by flight crews, Air Traffic Control Specialists, and other users of the National Airspace System. The reports are collected and deidentified by NASA and then published, describing what the reporter sees and thinks during normal operations, events, and incidents. This study examined the ground speed at which a flight crew chose to enter a turn during taxi operations based on taxiway intersection angle and surface contamination. Additionally, this study explored whether there was a way to connect ASRS and ADS-B.

Eighty-eight flights were split into four different groups based on their taxiway intersection angle and the surface conditions during taxi operations. A two-way Analysis of variance was conducted to analyze statistical differences between group means for the ground speed entering a turn. A significant interaction existed between taxiway angle and surface contamination, indicating differences in the group means. As the taxiway intersection angle increased, the ground speed significantly decreased for dry surface conditions.

Barriers currently present in the ASRS system prevented the researcher from linking any ADS-B data to a report using the information found in that ASRS report. NASA can improve the ASRS system by utilizing commercially available ADS-B data while still keeping the reporter confidential. Future research is necessary to expand this study outside of the United States and to explore the differences between taxi operations for international commercial air carriers.

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