Civilian aircraft modification for special purposes: verification and certification processes for major modification.

The topic of the thesis is framed within the activities of a project whose purpose is to convert a civil platform into a multi-role aircraft capable of long range maritime patrol mission, as well as anti-submarine and anti-surface warfare mission. Design and modification activity will be done side by side with the military type certification process, based on both civil and military regulations: FAA Title 14 CFR (Part 21, 25 etc.) and military standards (MIL-STDs and MIL-HDBKs) where FAA cannot be applicable. Within this contest the main objective is to analyze the verification and certification process following the major modification, in order to identify all the critical issues and to propose some design solutions. Here are the milestones of the work: - Starting from the certification basis, for each major modification the impact on the certification process will be evaluated, making sure that there will not be the need to modify the type certificate and thus to re-certify the platform. - Evaluate the Certification Program Plan identifying its critical issues. - Evaluate the Compliance Checklist for both airworthiness and flight safety. - Evaluate the Compliance Matrix with the selected "Means of Compliance". - Evaluate the support documentation of the certification process.