Aircraft Systems and Operational Environment: Things We Need to Know About

From the point of view of the aircraft designer: What is the current story? What are the critical concerns (size and weight, location) relative to aircraft design? What are the new developments that will change the story in the next 10 years? These systems and environments are listed below. There is some overlap in the topics.

In the Fall 0f 2006 each design team made 15-minute presentations on these topics to address the questions posed above. As always with student presentations, they may not be complete. But they do form a starting point for understanding each area. Future classes will refine and update the presentations.

• Electrical System
• Hydraulic System
• Flight Control Systems & Actuators
• Propulsion System w/controls
• Secondary Power Systems
• Landing Gear System
  • also look at: Sonny Chai and W.H. Mason, “ Landing Gear Integration in Aircraft Conceptual Design,” MAD 96-09-01, September 1996.
• Fuel System /w refueling & dumping
• Environmental Control System
• Water/Galley/Lavatory Systems
• Anti-Icing Systems
• Lighting Systems
• Escape systems w/ejection systems
• Advanced active materials

Av Wk Categories

• Air Traffic Control Radars
• Communication/Navigation Systems
• Data Processing Equipment
• Displays and Instruments/Crew Station
• Electronic Warfare Systems
• Integrated Avionics Systems
• Radars and Sensors
• ElectroOptic sensors
• Weapons Control and Targeting Systems
• UAV unique systems

Operations

• Network-Centric Battlefield/warfare
• All weather landing and takeoff
• Acoustic “mitigation” ­ noise
• Community Noise
  • also look at: Guobjorn Hreinsson, “Aircraft Noise,” Dec. 1993. This report was put together as an undergraduate research project by a student in the senior design class because there didn't seem to be a detailed description of the community noise problem. Because of its age, I scanned it in. It remains valuable.
• Survivability
• Autonomous Flight
  • see the VaCAS page for work being done at Virginia Tech.
• Sensor Fusion