Determination of Best Military Cargo Aircraft with Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Techniques

The changes that continually occur in the world's economic, military, and diplomatic constraints and strategic targets lead countries to take preventive measures for their defense systems. One of these is that involving military cargo planes. The aim of this study is to determine the best options, by using multi-criteria decision-making approaches, for supplying military cargo aircraft, such as the AHP, SAW, ELECTRE and TOPSIS methods. Firstly, in this study, the military cargo aircraft are examined in order to determine if they meet the needs of and make a contribution to the Air Force in a deterrent capacity. Next, decision theory is studied and related subjects and definitions are explained. Later, all the methodologies are presented individually. All the criteria are defined during the application process. These criteria are operational effectiveness, the country's share in the project, maintainability, maintenance easiness and cost-effectiveness. After this, a hierarchical model is composed and a comparison of criteria is made using the AHP and SAW methods; also the criteria of data related to the AHP method are used in the AHP, TOPSIS and ELECTRE methods. Finally, four different methods are used for three aircraft alternatives (A, B, C) and the best one ( C ) is determined.