Aircraft Design Related Reports
Several reports are available for download as Adobe Acrobat files that
would be useful for design.
- Joe Chambers, Innovation in Flight:
Research of the NASA Langley Research Center on Revolutionry Advanced Concepts for Aeronautics, NASA SP-2005-4539, 2005.
- The Boeing 737 Airplane
Characteristics for Airport Planning Document. This is from the Boeing web site, slightly
buried, and too big to email. This should be extremely useful for the 2009-2010 AIAA Design
Competition Teams. It includes performance data, and noise data as well as many drawings, including cabin
layout and cabin cross-sections.
- Jacob Kay, W.H. Mason, W. Durham, F. Lutze and A. Benoliel,
Control
Power Issues in Conceptual Design: Critical Conditions, Estimation Methodology,
Spreadsheet Assessment, Trim and Bibliography, VPI-Aero-200,
November 1993.
- Mark Anderson, Control
System Risk Assessment using fuzzy logic, VPI-AOE-239, October
1996. This report describes an approach to the incorporation of the control
system design considerations in the early stages of aircraft design. It
is the next step past the control power assessment requirements described
in VPI-Aero-200.
- Sonny Chai and W.H. Mason,
Landing Gear Integration in Aircraft Conceptual Design, MAD 96-09-01,
September 1996.
- Sean Lynn, Programs for Aircraft Takeoff Analysis in the
Preliminary Design Phase, May 1994.
The software is available under the software page.
- Alex Benoliel,Aerodynamic Pitch-Up of
Cranked Arrow Wings: Estimation, Trim, and Configuration Design.
This 1994 Master's Thesis provides an outstanding review of the low speed
aerodynamics of highly swept cranked wings, and a method to estimate pitchup.
It was the winner of the 1994 Paul E. Torgersen Graduate Student Research
Excellence Award, MS Category.
- B. Malone and W.H. Mason, Aircraft Concept Development Using Global
Sensitivity Approach and Algebraic Technology Models, VPI- Aero-184, December 1991.
Note, this is a 2.3MB pdf file that was made by scanning in the original report since
the electronic version is lost. The quality is remarkably good all things considered. This
report is an example of the use of optimization in aircraft design.
- 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.
- Tom Sieron, Dudley Fields, Wayne Baldwin and David Adamczak, Procedures and Design
Data for the Formulation of Aircraft Configurations, Air Force Report WL-TR-93-3068, August, 1993. This
is valuable as a sanity check. It is oriented toward fighters, and Air Force airplanes.
- Laurence Loftn, Subsonic Aircraft: Evoluiton and Matching of Size to Performance, NASA RP 1060, August 1980.
This is a valuable resource, for both propeller and jet aircraft. Loftin was a key NASA Langley aerodynamicist,
and this is essentially a book that came out of a course he taught at Langley after he retired.
Nemesis, shown below, is one of the great design stories of recent times. This Formula I
racer dominated its class for years before it was retired. Here we see it being towed, and
get some idea of its small size. This picture was taken at the Reno Air Races. The plane is now on
display at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum.
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