The Impact of Effectiveness Considerations On Design Synthesis

The scope of recent aircraft preliminary design studies has been expanded to include effectiveness considerations for configuration justification. Today's designer must therefore examine not only the interactions between traditional aircraft parameters (e.g. wing planform variables, engine cycle variables); he must determine how those parameters impact mission requirements. He must deal with more variables and new resource criteria. Statistical experiments and numerical search techniques are required to perform the optimization process, and combat effectiveness becomes the selection criteria. This report summarizes how optimization techniques and a campaign force effectiveness model have been incorporated into Vought's Aircraft Synthesis Analysis Program (ASAP) to perform these studies.