ABSTRACT: The present work is concerned with the accurate modeling of transport airplanes. This is of primary importance to reduce aircraft development risks and because multi-disciplinary design and optimization (MDO) frameworks require an accurate airplane modeling to carry out realistic optimization tasks. However, most of them still make use of tail volume coefficients approach for sizing horizontal and vertical tail areas. The tail-volume coefficient method is based on historical aircraft data and it does not consider configuration particularities like wing sweepback angle and tail topology. A methodology based on static stability and controllability criteria was elaborated and integrated into a MATLAB application for airplane design. Immediate advantages with the present methodology are the design of realistic tail surfaces and properly sized airplanes. Its validation was performed against data of five airliners ranging from the regional jet CRJ-100 to the Boeing 747-100 intercontinental airplane. An existing airplane calculator application incorporated the present tail-sizing methodology. In order to validate the updated application, the Fokker 100 airliner was fully conceptually designed using it.

ABSTRACT: This paper describes a multi-disciplinary design and optimization framework tailored for the conceptual development of high-altitude solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicles. The aircraft baseline configuration that the framework is able to handle is very similar to that of Zephyr, which is developed by the UK based company QinetiQ. The disciplines of aerodynamics, structures, stability, weight, and systems were considered and integrated into a modeFrontier® workflow, capable of providing a relatively simple sizing, but highly realistic airplane.

Abstract: In the early 20th century, Aviation pioneers in North America and Europe experienced quite different working ambiences. The Europeans, except for those living in England, embodied the spirit of the French Revolution; the Ameri-cans incorporated the ideas from the Industrial Revolution or, according to many historians, the English Revolution. Due to this fact, Aviation in Europe and in the United States evolved quite differently. In order to justify the establishment of those connections, the present work has described the way aviation pioneers designed and built theirflying machines and the state of aviation in North America and in Europe in the early 20th century. A collaborative working atmosphere was present among the European pioneers thanks to the French Revolution ideas that found general acceptance in Europe. The European aviation pioneers frequently exchanged information regarding aeronautical experience or even whole designs. Contrary to this, in the United States aviation, its development suffered from lack of information from the people who were competing for the firstflight. Indeed, a fierce competition among the individuals was established. The knowledge coming from Europe, noticeably from the Germans Lilienthal brothers and George Cayley, was being retransmitted by open-minded people like Octave Chanute. That is the reason why America fell behind Europe in regard to airplane technology before the broke out of World War I and a patent war started in the United States among their aviation pioneers. In France, the Aéro-Club de France was created in the last years of the 19th century. Among its objectives, one was to attest the first person to perform a flight with a heavier-than-air machine. After the Brazilian Santos-Dumont's flight with his 14bis biplane in 1906, in Paris, Wilbur Wright went to Europe in 1907 and established a workshop to continue improving the Flyer concept. Wright's supporter, Octave Chanute, had warned him that the aviation world was catching up fast, especially in France. However, Wilbur was only able to get the Flyer airborne in August 1908 in France, with disappointing results. However, impressive flights took place in late 1908 and the Wright brothers' European Flyer was the basic airplane they were able to sell to the US armed forces for the first time in 1909. After Santos-Dumont's success in flying his 14bis airplane in 1906, many of his comrades established airplane factories. Those Dumont's friends were eager to sell planes to the French government, and a competitive atmosphere settled down in the old continent. In addition, the collaborative ambience ceased because the World War I was only a matter of time.

Abstract: The present work is concerned with the preliminary design of a new galley concept for long-haul airliners. Usually, galley systems are placed in the main deck of airliners or even in some cases in the lower-deck cargo compartment. The present concept considers placing trolleys, components that occupy significant room in galley installations, in the lower-deck compartment and transport them to the passenger deck by a dedicated lift system. The main advantage of this proposal is that more room becomes available in the passenger cabin for the accommodation of additional passengers. By a careful analysis, which considers the required structural modifications that must be incoporated into the airplane configuration to accommodate the new concept, the payoff of the present proposal is investigated. This was carried out by using the PADLAB® 2.4 software package, written for MATLAB®, and an in-house routine to evaluate aircraftperformance and calculation of direct operating costs per seat mile. PADLAB® is tailored to the design of the cabin and the device and systems aimed at operating the trolleys by the passenger cabin crew; the in-house routine was validated against data obtained for the category of airliners under consideration.