Aircraft Design Tools for PC's

Recent technology advancements in hardware and software has allowed the emergence of the PC as a cost effective aircraft design/analysis platform. Software packages such as CSI-CADD, Vellum Solids, and AeroPack provide “Lockheed” class modeling tools for a wide variety of design projects. Modeling tools for airfoils, wings, and polyconic surfaces are discussed as well as data extraction methods for wetted areas, volumes, centroids, area curves, obscuration plots, meshing, and custom interfaces to design analysis programs such as GA-CAD.