Airworthiness Certification of Fighter Aircraft

Defence Research and Development Organisation. 2015. Trade paperback. Very good.. 367 p. Includes: index, bibliography. . This publication fills a very important niche in the broad spectrum of activities between design/development and release to service of a military fighter aircraft. That niche involves expertise, knowledge, and ability to absorb and implement concepts/nuances of technologies adopted by the designers and certification authorities. The task is complex and demands a good grasp of the subject, considering the fact that a modern fighter aircraft encompasses a multitude of disciplines that have to be integrated into a system that will meet the requirements of safety and operational effectiveness. The role and responsibility of the certification authority are further exacerbated in the concurrent design and certification model adopted in India. The text is the outcome of decades of hands-on experience of the author in the design evaluation of the aircraft and its systems for safety and performance parameters, and in implementing the process of airworhtiness certification of a variety of fighter aircraft, engines, systems, software and hardware. It would be impossible to incorporate, into a publication of this nature, all the details of various aspects involved in airworthiness certification of a fighter aircraft. However, an attempt has been made to bring out the knowledge required in the design of individual disciplines, evaluation techniques to be adopted, and the interactive nature of the work. This text has been structured in such a fashion as to give the casual reader a glimpse of airworthiness certification activities, and to the practitioner, a detailed exposure to this complex subject.