An Assessment of the Impact of Technology on VTOL Weight Prediction

The development of weight trending methods and the accurate prediction of the effects of technological advances on weight for the LHX family of vehicles will provide a challenge to the engineering community. The weight solution for the LHX will depend primarily on an accurate assessment of: 1) Technological Improvements in Rotors, Control Systems, Airframe, and Propulsion; 2) Weight impact of attribute enhancement in such areas as Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (NBC) protection, Low Observable Characteristics, Increased Reliability and Availability; and 3) Concept selection from among High Speed Compound Helicopters, ABC's or Tilt Rotors, none of which have a large statistical weight data base. To improve accuracy of the vehicle weight estimates and support associated tradeoff analyses, Sikorsky has undertaken a three-pronged approach: the update and improvement of existing statistical methods; development of interactive computer methods utilizing sizing criteria and statistical correlation coefficients; and thirdly, as a backup to these two methods, a detailed sub-system weight analysis to verify method development. The combination of these three approaches is expected to minimize the risk of predicting accurately the gross weight solution for the LHX vehicle.