Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:47:50.905Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Some Aspects of the Relationship between Airworthiness and Safety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

Extract

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to examine the relations between airworthiness and safety.

It seems to me that the problem of safety in aviation is fundamentally a problem of human behaviour. The human controlled aeroplane is mechanically extended man. To quote Sherrington

“The cerebrum … . comes, … to be the organism par excellence for the readjustment and the perfecting of the nervous reactions of the animal as a whole, so as to improve and extend them. These adjustments … . in higher animals form the most potent internal condition for enabling the species to maintain and increase its dominance over the environment in which it is immersed.”

If we exclude the effect of the counter strategies of competition an accident is a measure of the incompleteness of this dominance.

Type
Safety Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Aeronautical Society 1949

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. SirSherrington, Charles. The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. 1947 ed. (Note—The foreword to this edition is of relevant interest.)Google Scholar
2. Keynes, J. M. A Treatise on Probability.Google Scholar
Jeffreys, H. Theory of Probability. (Note—Methods of Mathematical Physics (Jeffreys & Jeffreys) deals briefly with chain probabilities.)Google Scholar
3. Neumann, Von, and Moroenstern, . The Theory of Games and Economic Behaviour.Google Scholar
4. Bostwick, H. C., and Roe, Robert B. Stability Chief Approach Problem. Aviation Week, vol. 49, No. 7.Google Scholar
5. Leontief, Wassily. Introduction to a theory of the internal structure of functional relationship. Econometrica, vol. 13, No. 4. Oct. 1948.Google Scholar
6. Hardingham, R. E. Aircraft accidents—Can chances of survival be increased? JOURNAL R.Ae.S., vol. 52, No. 451.Google Scholar
7. Pugsley, A. G. A philosophy of aeroplane strength factors. R. and M. 1906.Google Scholar
8. Blackett, P. M. S. Operational research. The Advancement of Science, vol. 5, No. 17, p. 26 Google Scholar
9. Epstein, Benjamin. Statistical aspects of fracture problems. JOURNAL of Applied Physics, vol. 19, No. 2.Google Scholar
10. Masefield, Peter G. Some Economic Factors in Civil Aviation. JOURNAL R.Ae.S. Oct. 1948.Google Scholar
11. Kendall, M. G. The Advanced Theory of Statistics (vol. II), and Contributions to the Study of Oscillatory Time Series.Google Scholar
12. Minorsky, N. Non Linear Mechanics.Google Scholar