A DATABASE SYSTEM CONCEPT TO SUPPORT FLIGHT TEST - MEASUREMENT SYSTEM DESIGN AND OPERATION

Abstract

Information management is of essential importance during design and operation of flight test measurement systems to be used for aircraft airworthiness certification. The reliability of the data generated by the realtime- and post-processing processes is heavily dependent on the reliability of all provided information about the used flight test measurement system. Databases are well fitted to the task of information management. They need however additional application software to store, manage and retrieve the measurement system configuration data in a specified way to support all persons and aircraft- and ground based systems that are involved in the design and operation of flight test measurement systems. At the Dutch National Aerospace Laboratory (NLR) a "Measurementsystem Configuration DataBase" (MCDB) is being developed under contract with the Netherlands Agency for Aerospace Programs (NIVR) and in cooperation with Fokker to provide the required information management. This paper addresses the functional and operational requirements to the MCDB, its data-contents and computer configuration and a description of its intended way of operation.