Conceptual Aircraft Design

15Aircraft Performance

15.1 Overview

This is the culminating chapter to assess if the sized aircraft configured, thus far, meets the Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) requirements and the customer specifications. Classroom work follows in a linear manner from the mock market survey (Chapter 2). The requirements and the specifications dealt with in this chapter comprise of aircraft performance to substantiate the (i) takeoff and (ii) landing field lengths (LFLs), (iii) initial rate of climb, (iv) maximum speed at initial cruise and, especially for civil aircraft design, its (v) payload range plus (vi) the turn rate for the Advanced Jet Trainer (AJT). Chapter 18 computes aircraft Direct Operating Cost (DOC), which should follow the aircraft performance estimation.

Aircraft performance is a subject all on its own. All aeronautical schools offer the subject as a separate course. Therefore, to substantiate the FAR and customer requirements, this chapter deals only with what is required, that is, the related governing equations and examples associated with the items listed above. Note that substantiation of payload‐range requires integrated climb and descent performances showing fuel consumed, distance covered and time taken for the flight segments. Readers are recommended to refer to [1] by the authors, as a companion book, dealing with the same aircraft performance in extensive details. The turboprop example is not worked out but there is enough information to compute it in a similar ...