Flight Lieutenant David Carroll works within the Australian Defence Force C-17 Acquisition Project, which has recently delivered four new RAAF C-17 Heavy Airlift Aircraft to the Air Force.
As part of this acquisition, David has applied his engineering knowledge to assess the crash protection attributes of the C-17. This is now a mandatory step in any new fleet acquisition – following the Sea King accident in Sumatra, ADF issued a ‘Crash Protection’ policy to minimise casualties in future aircraft accidents.
David’s work began with a detailed assessment of the C-17 Globemaster III design to determine how well it meets the crash protection standards issued by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). These standards are used in the design of Commercial airliners.
David collated and analysed a considerable quantity of C-17 design documents relevant to over 100 FAA regulations, then detailed how the C-17 design satisfies each of the regulations.
There is still some work to be done – the next step will be to physically inspect a C-17 aircraft during a scheduled servicing. At this stage, David will complete a crash protection survey, which will be used to compare the C-17 to other aircraft. Should the C-17 not meet the latest standards, an analysis will be performed to determine the practicality of modifying the aircraft to meet those standards.
David has been instrumental in managing this considerable engineering task, in a very short period of time, to improve the crash protection capacity of aerospace vehicles.
