Undergraduate flight dynamics education in a PC software environment

Abstract

DARcorporation is developing an interactive, user-friendly computer program to perform preliminary design and analysis functions for fixed wing airplanes. The system allows students to rapidly evolve an aircraft configuration from weight sizing through detailed performance calculations, while working within regulatory constraints. This paper shows how the software can be used in an academic environment for teaching flight dynamics at an undergraduate level. The newly developed user interface for airplane design and analysis in a windows based environment will bring computer analysis methods to people previously not exposed to these methods because of the high amount of difficult computer knowledge needed. INTRODUCTION In 1994 DARcorporation started the development of a new General Aviation design code. The program, called G.A.-CAD for General Aviation Computer Aided Design, is based on Advanced Aircraft Analysis (AAA) as described in Refs.l and 2. AAA and G.A.-CAD are based on Refs. 3-12. The examples described in this paper are based on Refs. 11 and 12. The flight dynamics and stability and control modules of both programs are identical. USER INTERFACE The purpose of this section is to present an overview of the G.A.-CAD and AAA system. The graphical user interface consists of the following elements: • windows