Research, Engineering Development Advisory Committee

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS)

Meeting Summary:

The Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS) met on July 31 and August 1, 2018 in East Hartford, CT, at 

Pratt & Whitney’s Customer Training Center, for its routine fall meeting. This meeting had three specific 

objectives on its agenda:

1. Review and provide comment on the FAA’s ongoing safety research plan accomplishments and 

ongoing research.

2. At FAA leadership and REDAC request, review and provide comment on the FAA’s recently 

released UAS Research Plan.

3. Continued review of topics of interest to the SAS including UAS, General Aviation safety and 

fatigue management.

To assess the 2018 research plan performance, SAS continued to utilize our new portfolio review 

approach. The FAA staff prepared a Research Program Area Report for the 15 major program areas

summarizing the desired outcome, research outputs delivered in FY18 and the overall status. Each SAS 

member had the opportunity to question the researchers in each major program area. Additionally, we 

were provided visibility of the overall R&D Program Strategy and how the FAA is developing new 

“research focus areas” such as Airport Technology, Aircraft Safety Assurance, Digital Systems and 

Technologies, Environmental and Weather Impact Mitigation, Human Factors and Aeromedical Factors 

and Aviation Performance and Planning. The SAS members appreciated the approach and suggested the 

FAA present a first pass of the research landscape and ongoing research at our next meeting. 

In advance of the meeting the FAA’s recently completed UAS Integrated Research plan was distributed 

for committee review. The committee was presented a summary of this plan during the meeting as well 

as the tasking provided by the Designated Federal Officer (DFO). A focused SAS discussion on the plan 

then ensued. A high-level summary of committee comments and the associated Findings and 

Recommendations are attached to this report. 

SAS continued its practice of engaging both Subcommittee members and agency expertise to inform our

discussions. At this meeting presentations from MITRE and AVSI (Aerospace Vehicle Systems Institute) 

informed our views on the future directions of industry. Additionally, we were provided with a briefing 

on Commercial Space Transportation Research and the AIR Innovation Center Initiative. 

The SAS will meet next on March 5 and 6, 2019. Location is TBD. We hope to use this meeting to 

continue to explore previously identified emerging issues and trends that are impacting needed safety 

research to ensure continued alignment with REDAC and AVS leadership objectives.

Respectfully Submitted,

Chris Kmetz

Acting Chair, REDAC Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety
Research, Engineering Development Advisory Committee

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS)

2018 Fall Meeting Findings and Recommendations

Research and Development Program Strategy and Research Portfolio Assessment

Finding 1:

The subcommittee notes the initiative underway to establish research focus areas to coordinate and 

communicate the strategic thrust of ongoing and future research. The research focus areas will include 

Airport Technology, Aircraft Safety Assurance, Digital Systems & Technology, Environment and Weather 

Impact Mitigation and Human Factors and Aeromedical Factors. A research landscape will be created 

for each focus area to capture all ongoing research and establish the strategic vision. The subcommittee

agrees with the approach and believes this is an opportunity to assure that the strategic research needs 

and emerging issues that the subcommittee has defined are captured and continuously reassessed. It 

has been noted that the funding sources and research topics are sufficiently different between Human 

Factors and Aeromedical Factors that it may make sense that these not be combined into a single 

research area. 

Recommendation 1:

The FAA should continue down the path of developing and maturing the research focus areas and

landscapes and provide a draft to the subcommittee for review and feedback prior to the next 

subcommittee meeting in March 2019. The draft should include a compilation of the ongoing research 

that supports the research focus area, regardless of BLI.

Recommendation 2:

The FAA should consider not separating Human Factors and Aeromedical Factors in the new research 

focus areas. 

Finding 2: 

The subcommittee appreciates the FAA sharing the agency’s Research Landscape and Strategic 

Direction for R&D (Shelley Yak briefing to SAS, 31 July 2018), the draft FY21 Strategic Guidance 

(Mark Orr briefing to SAS, 31 July 2018, under FAA management review as of 31 July 2018), and 

the FY19 Aviation Safety Portfolio (document provided to SAS by Mark Orr, 1 August 2018). 

These materials, plus the FAA’s responses to the SAS Spring 2018 Finding “Research 

Prioritizations”, adequately addresses the SAS concern regarding the FAA’s process for 

prioritizing research activities. Further to the subject of the FAA’s research prioritization 

process, the SAS finds that the value of each FAA research activity will be more easily 

understood by identifying the hazard and/or significant safety risk being addressed by the 

proposed research. In accomplishing this, SAS encourages the FAA to draw on all available data 

as the basis for determining benefits. As one example of this, in the SAS review of the FY18 

accomplishments, it was noted that reduced research budgets will delay release of an Advisory 

Circular. No indication was given of the linkage of this Advisory Circular release to the FAA’s 

overall research priorities. Hence the SAS was unable to understand and provide input to the 

FAA on the implications of the resulting delayed Advisory Circular release.
Research, Engineering Development Advisory Committee

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS)

Recommendation 2: 

In order for the SAS to provide the FAA more meaningful feedback on the proposed research portfolio, 

we recommend that the FAA convey, for each research activity:

a. The alignment or linkage to the current or emerging hazards with a high likelihood or 

potential to result in significant safety risks as identified by the FAA’s research priorities, 

and

b. The benefits (e.g., safety improvement) of each research activity, drawing on all available 

data and reasonable hazard assessment (i.e., going beyond limited-source data such as 

the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST), General Aviation Joint Steering Committee 

(GAJSC), or Helicopter Safety Team data).

Finding 3:

In the AVS Research FY 21 Strategic Guidance, AVS has committed to applying SMS principles and is 

using an evidence based approach to identify hazards, risks, and safety issues to drive future research 

needs. These research needs are based on data gathered throughout the National Airspace System 

(NAS). Some of the data used to support the FY 21 Strategic Guidance is 7 years old. Much has changed 

in the last 7 years. Additionally, technology is rapidly evolving, which creates new challenges and a very 

dynamic environment for risk identification and assessment. The subcommittee agrees with and 

supports the data driven, evidence based approach that AVS is using. However, using old data could lead 

to research that isn’t timely or based on assumptions that are no longer correct. It could also lead to 

omission of emerging issues when priorities are set. The NAS continuously generates new data. Most of 

this data is readily available and can be accessed in a timely manner.

Recommendation 3A:

Data that is more up to date should be used when identifying hazards, risks and safety issues analyzing 

risk in the NAS and identifying strategic research needs 

Recommendation 3B: 

Advances in data mining and machine learning should be applied to the large set of operational data to 

identify causal influences and trends in emerging risk areas

UAS Research Plan

Finding 4:

Upon review of the UAS research plan the SAS observes the continued need for of clear leadership and 

responsibility for UAS research. While the UAS research plan has merit at the strategic level there is a 

significant inconsistency between the active research and the strategic goals of the UAS research plan 

which indicates a lack of strategic leadership and responsibility for the UAS research agenda. 

Recommendation 4A:

The FAA should clearly define who has ultimate responsibility for updating the research plan and the 

process by which this occurs.
Research, Engineering Development Advisory Committee

Subcommittee on Aircraft Safety (SAS)

Recommendation 4B:

The FAA should develop a process for aligning proposed and planned work with the integration plan to 

assure that opportunities to adjust the plan “on the fly” to match the available funding levels are fully 

leveraged. 

Finding 5:

The SAS notes that a number of funded research activities in the UAS and other areas are pending DOT 

approval which is making it difficult to manage and execute the research portfolio. 

Recommendation 5:

The FAA and DOT should develop a process to accelerate approval of grants necessary for advancing 

research projects.

Automation and Artificial Intelligence

Finding 6:

The committee notes the high level of industry investment and interest in higher level automation and 

machine learning for manned and unmanned vehicles (small and large UAV, UAM, Simplified Vehicle 

Operations, Automated Air Cargo, etc.). This is an emerging issue which the SAS has noted in the past 

but is becoming more urgent. 

Recommendation 6:

FAA should develop a research plan to develop certification approaches and to support certification 

criteria and human factors evaluation of advanced automation systems.

Runway Friction Research

Finding 7:

The subcommittee appreciates the briefing on runway friction research and notes that the activity is no 

longer airport-centric in its nature. The SAS believes that the effort would benefit from REDAC input on 

the next steps. There is an opportunity to take the data that is available to develop a predictive tool 

that can be tracked and validated via on board data.

Recommendation 7:

The FAA should develop a plan to explore data reduction methods and provide the REDAC with an 

updated research approach including the overall roadmap and strategic plan.