2023 is the centenary anniversary year for the domestic civil aviation. At every stage of the branch development, the legal support of its activity was supplemented and transformed which was caused with the specific historical realities. There are few publications dedicated to the early days of the air law as a separate area of legislation. The article presents the historicalretrospective of regulatory regime development throughout the first decades of the aviation industry existence. It is noted, that the first legal act concerning domestic aeronautical industry was published in the late XVIII^th century by Empress Catherine the Great, who was worried about the poor reliability of aerostatic balloons. Later, decrees were published during the reigns of Emperors Alexander I of Russia and Nicholas II of Russia, the latter being the patron of the development of aeronautics. The early Soviet days brought into life the legally relevant resolutions for the development of domestic aviation. Among them, the Resolution of the USSR Council of Labor and Defense dated from February 9^th, 1923, about establishing the Council for Civil Aviation at the Main Directorate of the Workers and Peasants’ Red Air Fleet became the crucial milestone. Hence, it is generally accepted that this day is the official date of birth of the country’s civil aviation as an independent branch of the economy. The legal acts of the 20s-40s touched upon the issues of scheduled air transportation, the foundation of the first national airline Dobrolyot, the air traffic control service coordination, the labor and payment provisions for the aviation personnel. The regulatory acts of the pre-war period are logical and laconic, with clear and comprehensive legal language. The pre-revolutionary period archaic style is no longer in use. The legal sources conform to hierarchy and subordination principles. The document content is intended to increase the aircraft and equipment, airspace and flight safety efficiency. During the Great Patriotic War, the «Statute Concerning the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet during the War Time» of the 23^rd of June 1941, established by the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR activated the call-up plans, the manpower of the civil air fleet was involved in combat missions, with the main effort being concentrated on the all possible help to the battlefront.

In the process of the production activity of the airport refueling complex (RC), because of the movement of jet fuel associated with emptying and filling fuel tanks when receiving and supplying jet fuel for aircraft (AC) refueling, two negative phenomena are bound to occur – water contamination in jet fuel with when interacting with air, its evaporation and entrainment into the atmosphere. This entails economic losses, an increased level of fire and explosion hazard and environmental damage. The amount of damage caused by the natural loss of jet fuel, because of the inevitable emission of vapor-air mixture (VAM) from the RC tank farm, reaches 10...14% of the volume of jet fuel transshipment. In turn, such volume of evaporated kerosene leads to a serious environmental problem – pollution of the atmosphere by aviation fuel vapors, escalating the costs for compensation and taxation of environmental management, potential harming the health of the RC full-time staff. The RC becomes a fire-hazardous object, which incurs expenses for fire protection measures. The article evaluates the quantitative and qualitative losses from evaporation and water contamination in fuel in the conditions of storage, reception, and delivery of aviation fuel from the airport RC tanks. Based on the analysis of the mechanism of deterioration of the aviation fuel quality from water contamination and mechanical impurities, as well as losses of light fractions of aviation fuel caused by the phenomena of strong and inconsiderable breathing of tanks of the tank farm facilities, invariably accompanying the processes of storage, delivery, and reception of aviation fuel. The causes and mechanism of formation of aviation fuel losses from strong and inconsiderable breathing of tanks as well as from saturation of the gas space are established. The recommendations for reducing these losses are proposed. The article analyzes the known methods of reducing (preventing) VAM emissions and considers the task of developing reliable and automated methods and technologies for reducing jet fuel losses, particularly, reducing the level of water content in jet fuel. Automation of the processes to minimize jet fuel losses is becoming relevant. The calculation of jet fuel losses from evaporation during storage, reception, and delivery of jet fuel to the airport RC within the heavy air traffic period concerned with the greatest movement of jet fuel, giving an idea of the scale of economic losses and environmental damage, is presented. The currently existing systems for reducing losses of petroleum products are considered. The article presents a technical solution to reduce the loss of jet fuel from evaporation in tanks by developing an automated system that minimizes the level of water content in jet fuel in the tank and reduces the loss of light fractions of jet fuel during storage, reception, and delivery due to the dehumidification of atmospheric air entering the above-fuel space of the tank, as well as VAM condensation and separation under inconsiderable and strong breathing of tanks. The proposed system for reducing losses of aviation kerosene from evaporation will significantly increase the efficiency of capturing VAM of aviation fuel when stored in the RC fuel tank battery, improve the environmental situation of the RC activity, minimize the economic RC losses from natural loss, as well as mitigate the risk for fire hazard of the airport RC. The system is designed for retrofitting tanks for receiving, storing, and delivering jet fuel, fuel tank batteries, fuel, and lubricants warehouses.

Due to the explosive development of unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) technology worldwide, the UAS is becoming increasingly relevant for applications in both military and civilian fields. Good progress in the number and scope of unmanned aerial vehicles utilization has led to a high demand for pilots/operators of unmanned aerial vehicles. Thus, this profession began to gain in popularity in aviation. First, this article outlines the UAS classification considering the ICAO standards as well as unique characteristics. Futhermore, taking into consideration the current requirements for the qualification of the UAV pilot/operator issued by the aviation authorities of the USA, Great Britain, China and Russia, general and special qualification requirements, such as professional qualities, medical requirements, psychological screening, training requirements, operation and cooperation experience, are analyzed. In addition, based on the differences between the training of manned aircraft pilots and UAV pilots, the syllabus and methods of training inclusive of a human factor and physiological health are considered, which is of vital importance for selecting and training the UAS pilot/operator.

This article analyzes the technology of cooperation between the air traffic control (ATC) and the ornithological service (OS). As part of the analysis, the procedures of preventive measures for air traffic controllers (ATC) and OS specialists to avert bird strikes were considered. The phases of aircraft (AC) taxiing to a runway (RW) and takeoff were considered. For individual flights, delays were determined. Flow charts and network technological charts of the ATC-OS cooperation were built. The direct air traffic management within the framework of this article is carried out by air traffic controllers of the control units «Ground» and «Tower». The flight director (FD), ground personnel and the OS specialist are also involved in the work. The technology of the ATC-OS cooperation is evaluated in terms of efficiency and flight safety. As an indicator of efficiency in this study, a value equal to the ratio of the expected time to the real time of AC departure was adopted. The time of movement, denoted in the flight plan, varies depending on an aerodrome, RW, TW, AC type and many other factors. Therefore, to determine the expected time of AC flight support, statistical data, indicating the AC flight time without the impact of external factors, were used. The study of the technology for the ATC-OS cooperation was carried out for 12 months. The research array was obtained from the daily flight plans of Zhukovsky airport – flight number, AC type, takeoff-landing time, various aircraft ground maneuvers at an airfield.

A risk-oriented approach implemented in conducting control and supervisory activities in Civil Aviation organizations makes it possible to increase the effectiveness of such activities, the objectivity of assessments, to reduce costs and the additionalburden on business. The main provisions, regulating the activities of control and supervision bodies, including the issues of risk assessment, are generally specified in regulatory documents. However, uncertainty remains regarding the use of so-called risk indicators, which are designed to forecast risks for flight safety. Currently, there are no guidelines on the number and composition of such indicators, there are no methods to use them for the intended purpose. The article proposes a solution to this problem using elements of artificial intelligence. Based on the example of risk indicators distinctive for air traffic service organizations, the feasibility of forecasting the level of risk through a fuzzy (hybrid) neural network is shown. As is well known, such hybrid structures, combining neural networks and fuzzy logic, collect the best properties of both methods. The formation of a set of risk ndicators and initial data for network training is carried out with the involvement of qualified experts with extensive experience in flight safety management and control and supervisory activities. The trained network allows us to quantify a forecasted level of risk in an airline based on the identified risk indicators considering the degree of their manifestation. All the stages of building and using the network in the ANFIS editor of the MATLAB software package are shown. The proposed method can also be used in the flight safety management systems for various providers of aviation services.

In the process of improving gas turbine engines (GTE), increasing the resource and efficiency, there is a constant increase in temperature and pressure of the working fluid. Turbine elements are subjected to high thermomechanical loads and continuous exposure from the aggressive environment. These impacts are especially significant for the working blades of the first stages of the turbine, located in the area of the highest temperatures. One of the most serious types of damage in this case is the corrosive effect on the working blade from the combustion gases entering the flow part of the turbine. The TS-1 fuel used on an aircraft contains sulfur compounds in its composition – elemental sulfur and mercaptans, which in the combustion process, together with sodium and potassium in the air, leads to an aggressive effect on the material of the turbine blade. To ensure the long-term operation of the turbine blades of the turbine at the gas temperature at the turbine inlet up to 800...850 ℃, the content of these products in both fuel and air is limited according to the regulatory and technical documentation. However, it is not yet possible to exclude them completely. The presence of sulfur compounds on the turbine blades of the GTE causes sulfide corrosion. Therefore, the article considers the influence of impurities in fuel and air on the process of sulfide corrosion of the turbine blades material of the turbine. The mechanism of sulfur dissolution in metal oxides or protective coating is presented, as well as the diffusion of sulfur oxide from the coating surface into its depth. The reason for the influence of sodium chloride contained in the air on the corrosion of nickel alloy or the protective coating applied on it has been established. The influence of vanadium in the fuel on the corrosion rate is given. In order to increase the efficiency of the turbine blades when exposed to such an aggressive environment, it is proposed to use a new coating formed from an aqueous suspension and allowing the introduction of chromium into the coating, which provides a higher durability of such a coating in comparison with serial aluminide coatings. The introduction of chromium is ensured by an exothermic reaction occurring during the formation of the coating during heat treatment.

The article proposes the approaches to updating a strapdown inertial navigation system (SINS) based on data of the airborne electro-optical system (EOS) of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). It is specified that the EOS is presented as a navigation data sensor. The rationale for the feasibility of such an approach is formed, especially in the terms of signal lack or suppression of satellite radio-navigation systems. It is proposed to ensure the accuracy of self-contained navigation by assigning an UAV route, including waypoints with terrestrial references (TRs). Notably, TR-associated image information is preliminarily downloaded into the flight management computer (FMC). The automated TR identification system with denoted coordinates at next waypoints, using airborne data, in fact, allows for alternative global positioning. The reliable operation of such an integrated navigation system over sufficiently extended legs of flight path, first, depends on the accuracy of its constituent elements. Taking into consideration the fact that conventional sensors of navigation information, such as a SINS and an altimeter, are quite well studied in numerous contributions. The article focuses on the UAV airborne electro-optical system and, specifically, on its application features as a navigation sensor. The factors influencing the accuracy of the UAV positioning data determination at waypoints according to the data of the airborne EOS are considered. The developed mathematical model of errors for the UAV inertial optical navigation complex (IONC) is presented. The analysis of the impact of airborne altimeter inaccuracies, earth’s surface features and the shift of the onboard digital camera optical axis, caused by random evolutions of the carrier body in turbulent atmosphere on the positioning accuracy, was conducted. The results of calculating lapses in determining the UAV positioning data, equipped with IONC, are given.

In the current global economic conditions, airlines need to curtail financial expenses. It is known that the share of airline costs for maintenance and repair (MR) in the total cost structure amounts to at least 20%, of which more than 40% is for the repair and maintenance of aircraft engines (AE). According to the actual expertise, this item of expenditure will continue to grow due to the inevitable sophistication of AE structures, which is specified by the need to increase the efficiency and ecological compatibility. One of the possible ways of curbing maintenance and repair expenses is to transit for the operation of on-condition components which are currently in operation until the overhaul life is exhausted. For example, turbine blades of gas turbine engines (GTE) can be pertinent to such elements. It is a common fact that turbine blades operate in challenging environment: they are affected by excessive temperatures, severe centrifugal loads, aggressive gas media, and their destruction generally occurs because of the accumulation of fatigue damage and creep. The alloy microstructure significantly degrades and deforms before macroscopic damage develops. The early detection of microscopic damage in the alloy is the tool which allows for the transition to GTE oncondition turbine blades operation. The article presents the method for calculating the minimum creep rate of the Inconel 738LC alloy based on microstructural changes under operating conditions. The obtained results are proposed to be used for calculating the residual life of turbine blades by the creep parameter.