Objectives  In order to ensure the operation efficiency of the continuous dispatch of carrier aircraft, it is of great significance to optimize the operation flow of carrier aircraft surface support.

Methods Considering the complexity of carrier aircraft support operation scheduling, as well as the complexity of ship surface support equipment and its susceptibility to unknown factors, the establishment of a ship surface support operation flow scheduling optimization model and its optimization algorithm are studied. Taking a Ford-class aircraft carrier of the US army as an example, starting from the one-stop support mode, the carrier aircraft support job scheduling problem is studied, and a scheduling model that can handle serial, parallel, and flexible constraints at the same time is established. Meanwhile, based on the analysis of the salp swarm algorithm(SSA) and genetic algorithm, a scheduling algorithm for the shipborne aircraft support operation flow is proposed which introduces the crossover and mutation operation of the genetic algorithm on the basis of the SSA.

Results  Verified through numerical examples, an approximate global optimal solution can be obtained which shortens the support time by 16.8% compared with the genetic algorithm.

Conclusions The proposed method improves the utilization rate of resources to allow the rational allocation of the aircraft carrier’s support resources, enabling the carrier-borne aircraft to be dispatched efficiently and improving the combat capability of the aircraft carrier.