Refining the U.S. Navy Flight Clearance (Airworthiness Certification) Process: Maximizing Acquisition Reform Benefits for Commercial Derivative Aircraft Acquisitions

The purpose of this thesis is to propose several specific process improvements to the U.S. Navy Flight Clearance process. It also makes recommendations for investment in test and evaluation infrastructure to better support commercial derivative aircraft acquisition for military use. Recent changes to Department of Defense acquisition regulations have increased alternatives available to the services to meet military operational requirements. In order to reduce cost and cycle times, the military services are turning more and more to acquiring commercially developed and certified aircraft to meet military requirements.