Cost benefit analysis of adding technologies to commercial aircraft to increase the survivability against surface to air threats

Abstract

Flying internationally is an integral part of people's everyday lives. Most United States airlines fly internationally on a daily basis. The world continues to become a more dangerous place, due to improvements to technology and the willingness of some nations to sell older technology to rebel groups. In the military realm, there have been countermeasures to combat surface to air threats and thus increase the survivability of military aircraft. Survivability is defined as the ability to remain mission capable after a single engagement. Existing commercial aircraft currently do not have any countermeasure systems or missile warning systems integrated into their onboard systems. Better understanding of the interaction between countermeasure systems and commercial aircraft will help bring additional knowledge to support a cost benefit analysis. The scope of this research is to perform a cost benefit analysis on the addition of these technologies that are currently available on military aircraft, and to study the adding of these same technologies to commercial aircraft. The research will include a cost benefit analysis along with a size, weight, and power analysis. Additionally, a simulation will be included that will analyze the success rates of different countermeasures versus different surface to air threats in hopes of bridging the gap between a cost benefit analysis and a survivability simulation. The research will explore whether or not adding countermeasure systems to commercial aircraft is technically feasible and economically viable.