The Design of Advanced Very Light Jet Aircraft

Abstract

The current state of the art in aircraft design has shown that in order to be economically viable and competitive it is necessary to investigate technology, which may give an improvement in performance and operational flexibility goal, but must be shown to be cost-effective. The current competitive environment forces the potential customers to buy advanced technology aircraft and requires manufacturers to provide more operational flexibility, without drastic performance penalties. This is a challenging task, which might be solved by the use of new technologies. It is believed that the application of an advanced high-lift capability, high cruise Mach number and lower moment turbulent airfoils derived from MS (1)-0317 and MS (1)-0313 to a wing would assist in achieving such a task. This paper describes an investigation aimed to examine the suitability of an aerodynamic wing design, allowing for the use of an advanced turbulent wing section concept for advanced medium-speed Very Light Jet (VLJ) aircraft. The paper describes the phenomenon of configuration design and outlines the wing design process. Description is then given of the aerodynamic design of a wing incorporated with an advanced turbulent wing section technology, tail design and aircraft performances. It concludes with a discussion of the results and recommendations for future work.