Engine Control, An Aircraft Atypical Computer: How to Set the Standard? 2011-01-2543
Four years ago Airbus became actively involved in the SAE E36, Electronic Engine Control committee. This paper presents an Airframe Manufacturer view of one current working practices discussion relative to the FADEC electrical hardware change and describes an Airframe Manufacturer views on the committee's effectiveness along with a vision for its future.
The SAE E36 committee is a representation of the propulsion control engineering community. The members comes from Airworthiness Authorities and other government and military agencies, airframers, engine manufacturers and control suppliers from North America, South America and Europe (including Russia).
An active involvement allows an aircraft manufacturer to participate actively in the process and “to set the standard”.
An additional benefit is to be aware of “what's hot”. Technical meetings provide the opportunity to debate on emerging regulatory change and technology trends with experts from organisations which span from small aircraft to large, crossing the civil and military domain.
The Full Authority Digital Engine Control (FADEC) is more and more an atypical computer with a complexity similar to the computer systems used for flight control. This raises a question as a flight control computer is completely specified by the aircraft manufacturer, but the engine control specification is limited to thrust control and indication aircraft interfaces alone. Furthermore, while the flight control is certified by the aircraft authorities alone, the engine control is certified by the engine and the engine control installation is certified by the Aircraft authorities.
By being involved in this, the aircraft manufacturer have the opportunity to be aware of current issues and therefore be in a position to plan ahead rather than continually need to catch up. The following paper describes the specific standard process to deploy to manage the electrical hardware FADEC changes over the life of the aircraft.
The paper is the authoritative source for the abstract.
