Aircraft conceptual design is the first step toward the design and manufacturing of new types of vehicles. At this stage of the design process it is necessary to analyze the performance of many aircraft configurations for a given payload and mission profile. Many methods and tools are currently available to accomplish this task in an efficient way. This work focuses on the evaluation of two of these tools: the Flight Optimization System (FLOPS) developed by NASA and the Pacelab Aircraft Preliminary Design (APD) developed by PACE. In particular, the authors focus on the evaluation of the capabilities of each software to model particular aircraft configurations and on the quality of the performance estimated during the analysis. The following aspects are investigated: geometric modeling capabilities, aircraft weight estimation and breakdown, aerodynamic performance computation, mission definition, analysis capabilities and output types and format. The evaluation of the software is based on two aircraft configurations modeled using both FLOPS and Pacelab APD. The aircraft considered are a Boeing 737-800, and an ATR 72-500. For each aircraft a mission profile and additional operating performances are specified. Detailed results of the FLOPS and Pacelab APD analysis are presented.
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