Prediction of the maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft based on engineering method

Abstract

Purpose

General aviation aircraft has a wide range of applications, and effective cost management is one of the hot spots in the research of general aviation manufacturers. The purpose of this paper is to build a flexible engineering method to predict maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft.

Design/methodology/approach

To establish a reasonable general aviation aircraft maintenance cost prediction model, it is necessary to analyze the influencing factors and extract the main components of maintenance cost. The maintenance cost is divided by engineering method, and the estimation model of each component cost is established. Then, the general aviation aircraft maintenance cost model is obtained. The results show that the relative error of this method is between 13% and 20%, which has a good estimation accuracy and can be effectively used to estimate the maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft.

Findings

The maintenance cost plays an important role in the life cycle cost of general aviation aircraft. Accurate cost prediction method is of great significance to the optimal design of general aviation aircraft. However, there are few prediction models suitable for maintenance cost, the proposed approach is meaningful and quite desirable.

Originality/value

To some extent, this method overcomes the shortage of the work on maintenance cost prediction for general aviation aircraft. The model established in this paper has certain generality, which can provide some reference for general aviation aircraft design and operation enterprises.

Citation

Chen, X., Chu, S., Zhang, G., Chen, X., Huang, J. and Yi, M. (2023), "Prediction of the maintenance cost of general aviation aircraft based on engineering method", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 95 No. 6, pp. 932-938. https://doi.org/10.1108/AEAT-10-2022-0267