Georgia College Outfits Fleet with Low Cost Flight Recorders

Falls Church, VA, July 25, 2012 --(PR.com)-- Middle Georgia College’s Aviation Division Flight Department has purchased and outfitted all of its fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft with the TrendBox200, a low-cost airframe trend monitoring and flight tracking system from Technical Data Analysis, Inc. (TDA) and Shadin Avionics. By using the TrendBox200, Middle Georgia College students will now have the ability to replay their own flights in an interactive 3D environment via a web-based interface that can be accessed anywhere in the world, allowing both the student and the instructor to “re-fly” the flight and give them the ability to review the flight data. The faculty and staff can flag safety issues, tailor maintenance to actual aircraft usage, and have insight into in-service events such as over-speed and over-g events for their fleet aircraft.

The TrendBox200 measures GPS data, aircraft accelerations and rates, and records them onto a solid-state memory device that provides an automatic log of every flight, including user supplied information specific to the flight (weight, weather conditions, pilot, etc.). Data from every flight may then be analyzed on-line worldwide at www.flightframe.net.

FlightFrame is a beneficial tool for individual aircraft owners, fleet operators, and flight schools because it not only provides an automated log-book of flights for each aircraft in the fleet, but also provides individual aircraft tracking of actual in-flight events and flags events that could result in damage to the aircraft, such as hard landings, potential over-speeds, and excessive maneuvering, along with the precise time and date that the event occurred. Other features include projected maintenance scheduling and cost reduction strategies based on the usage of the aircraft, a fleet overview tool for the management of fleet aircraft, and airframe life tracking for insight into airframe fatigue. In addition to these features, an online replay of each flight is available via the X-PlaneTM flight simulator and with CockpitViewTM, an add-in to Google EarthTM that follows the airplane altitude, speed, flight path, pitch, and roll during the flight.

As a part of a safety management strategy, flight data monitoring (FDM) has been shown to increase the safety of aircraft operations. FlightFrame.net coupled with the TrendBox200 is a low cost method of incorporating FDM into a fleet of aircraft by collecting statistics of flights and highlighting where potential safety risks occur. Middle Georgia College will use the TrendBox200 to obtain the safety benefits of FDM while also providing increased visibility of the fleet for maintenance and an increase in their student pilot proficiency via data replay and tracking capability. Additionally, data from the TrendBox200 will be extracted for use in aviation management courses through the analysis of operational data for the fleet and for individual aircraft, fleet planning, reliability analysis, and other applications.

The TrendBox200 and FlightFrame is expected to complement the work of the Middle Georgia College Institute for Applied Aerospace Research which has completed work on a variety of NASA contracts and corporate projects including the development of NextGen avionics system requirements for the Lockheed Box Wing Aircraft (NASA ERA project), development of the Integrated Equipment Compartment for the James Webb Space Telescope (constructed of advanced composites), construction of a multi-engine UAV utilizing advanced flow-control aerodynamics, and numerous other projects.

For more information on how you can purchase a TrendBox200, visit http://www.flightframe.com.

About Middle Georgia College
The Georgia aviation campus, of Middle Georgia College is located in Eastman, Georgia and provides a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration with tracks in Professional Flight, Air Traffic Control, Airport Management, and Logistics. Middle Georgia College is a publicly supported state college unit of the University System of Georgia. Middle Georgia College is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award associate and select baccalaureate degrees. For more information visit http://www.mgc.edu. Middle Georgia College and Macon State College are consolidating into Middle Georgia State College January 1, 2013 pending approval by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and the University System of Georgia.

About TDA
Technical Data Analysis, Inc. (TDA) is a small aerospace engineering consulting firm with headquarters in Falls Church, VA and offices in Marietta, GA and Lexington Park, MD. Since starting in 1997, TDA has been providing in-depth aeronautical engineering support to the US Navy, Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection, NASA, NOAA and other government and commercial entities. TDA's professional staff is comprised of experienced engineers with direct, hands-on experience in structural and systems engineering - specifically aircraft structural design and analysis, fatigue analysis, aircraft structural health and life monitoring, airframe life predictions, finite element analysis, flight test support and data reduction, and web-based software application development. TDA’s solutions typically extend the useful life of aircraft by 10-25% through their extensive engineering expertise and unique ability to solve non-trivial, difficult problems. As such, TDA has been instrumental in ensuring airworthiness while maximizing fleet readiness, thereby saving taxpayers countless dollars while continuing to protect the warfighters that safeguard our freedom.