Development cost prediction of general aviation aircraft using combined estimation technique

Obtaining accurate development cost estimation results of general aviation aircraft is crucial for companies to adopt the best strategy in the development process. To address this problem, this paper proposes a combination of three commonly used single prediction methods. The optimal weight values of the three single prediction methods are determined by utilizing the shortest ideal point method. Ten cost datasets collected from literature are utilized for fitting and testing the combined prediction method, and the weight coefficients of the three individual prediction methods are calculated as 0.6859, 0.0035 and 0.3106, respectively. The results of this study indicate that the developed method has better fitting and estimation accuracy than that of the three individual methods, with average fitting and predicting error values of 2.60% and 6.43%, respectively. Additionally, the cost data of military and civil aircraft development from literature are collected for verification. The results further confirm that the proposed method is not only superior to the single prediction methods in terms of high precision but has wider applications. More importantly, this research can provide important reference for general aviation aircraft companies in term of product cost planning and corporate sales strategies.