Pitfalls in Future Air Vehicle Design: Transformational Requirements

摘要

Investment in future type certificated small air vehicles must be informed by more than just astute aeronautical engineering. In order to avoid the pitfalls that have so often killed new aircraft designs, such new vehicles will have to meet an extraordinary new set of transformational requirements in terms of noise, greenhouse gas emissions, safety, public acceptance, cost and take off and landing operations. Recent technologic, business and systems analyses validate these requirements, and make possible the definition of specific, commensurate mission capabilities. These new mission capabilities are more demanding than those that have guided previous designs of personal air vehicles (PAVs), helicopters, Light Sport Aircraft (LSAs) and conventional take off and landing (CTOL) general aviation aircraft. They have some overlap with those for future civil UAVs. This paper explores the establishment of these mission capabilities, their role in transforming general aviation and a roadmap by which future air vehicle designs could rapidly fulfill them.