Requirements Analysis for Design Optimization of Aerobatic Aircraft

Aerobatic aircraft design and simulation is challenging as these aircraft need to fly at any angle of attack and sideslip angle (full-envelope aerodynamics). They fly at velocities close to stall speed, all the way up to the never exceed velocity. These aircraft are also routinely stressed to 6-12 g's in both upright and inverted flight. Presently, most aerobatic aircraft are designed using heuristic knowledge. There is a need for a systematic approach to design aerobatic aircraft in a multi-disciplinary design framework. Towards this goal, this paper presents an extensive study of requirements, metrics and design variables to define a good aerobatic aircraft. First a historical perspective is given to know the current state-of-the-art. Information obtained from regulations, aircraft performance, subject matter experts and analysis of existing aircraft is used to obtain metrics to evaluate. The possible design configurations is given as a morphological matrix. Finally, possible analysis approaches to evaluate the metrics are discussed