Mission Performance Considered as Point Performance in Aircraft Design

The cruise or loiter performance of an aircraft is intimately tied to its wing loading and its thrust-to-weight ratio. Paradoxically, mission performance is often not considered when these fundamental aircraft parameters are determined in conceptual design. In this paper, the traditional constraint...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of aircraft 2011-09, Vol.48 (5), p.1576-1587
Main Author: McDonald, Robert A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aerospace engineering
Air transportation and traffic
Aircraft
Aircraft components
Aircraft design
Applied sciences
Contours
Design engineering
Endurance
Exact sciences and technology
Ground, air and sea transportation, marine construction
Load
Missions
Performance evaluation
Sizing
Weighing
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The cruise or loiter performance of an aircraft is intimately tied to its wing loading and its thrust-to-weight ratio. Paradoxically, mission performance is often not considered when these fundamental aircraft parameters are determined in conceptual design. In this paper, the traditional constraint diagram is extended to include contours of range or endurance parameter. These performance metrics represent the mission-performance capability of the aircraft without sizing the aircraft to a particular mission. This gives the designer an immediate and intuitive understanding of the tradeoff between the point and mission performance of the aircraft. The potential freedom for the designer to choose the operating condition of the aircraft is also considered. This improved constraint diagram presents the designer with a more complete basis for understanding and weighing the consequences of decisions. Through improved insight, the secondary impact of technologies can be better understood early in the design process. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]
ISSN:0021-8669
1533-3868
DOI:10.2514/1.C031290