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The preliminary design studies are presented for an advanced general aviation aircraft. Advanced guidance and display concepts, laminar flow, smart structures, fuselage and wing structural design and manufacturing, and preliminary configuration design are topics to be discussed. This project was conducted as a graduate level design class under the auspices of the KU/NASA/USRA Advanced Design Program in Aeronautics. This paper will present the results obtained during the fall semester of 1990. The project will be continued into the spring semester of 1991.

A personal computer based preliminary design system for aircraft demonstrates a practical method to design and analyze any aircraft configuration. The program provides a powerful framework to support the non-unique process of aircraft preliminary design. The system will allow design engineers to rapidly evolve an aircraft configuration from weight sizing through detailed performance calculations, while working within regulatory constraints. The program is designed to reduce the preliminary design phase cost and to bring advanced design methods to small businesses and universities.

This paper describes a simple, self-contained flight test data acquisition system. The system makes use of the latest sensor and microprocessor technology available, to reduce overall system costs. Coupled with this is the use of modern control theory techniques allowing minimization of data requirements, as well as flight time requirements. Capability of the system includes primarily stability and performance analysis of general aviation airplanes, although system versatility has been designed into the package. Presented are details of the prototype system constructed, as well as details of the data reduction technique utilized. Preliminary results of the flight test program have also been included which demonstrate the capability of this system.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an investigation of separate surface stability augmentation systems for general aviation aircraft. The program objectives were twofold: First a wind tunnel program to determine control effectiveness of separate surfaces in the presence of main surfaces, and hinge moment feedback from separate surfaces via the main surfaces to the pilot; second, a theoretical study to determine the minimum performance of actuators and sensors that can be tolerated, the best slaving gains to be used with separate surfaces, and control authority needed for proper operation under direct pilot control, under autopilot control, and in failure situations. On the basis of the results obtained, it has been concluded that separate surface systems are feasible and advantageous for use in general aviation aircraft.

A review is given of the NASA/Industry/University General Aviation Drag Reduction Workshop which was held at The University of Kansas, July 14-16, 1975. It is shown that large drag reductions can be made, particularly in propeller driven airplanes. It is also shown, however, that existing drag prediction methods are inadequate to cope with propeller driven airplanes. Many unknowns are shown to exist with regard to the problem of designing general aviation airplanes for minimum drag. Several areas for potentially fruitful research are indicated. A list of 123 drag references is included. This paper is based on work supported by NASA under NASA Grant NSG 1175.