Overview of High Performance Aircraft Propulsion Research

This paper presents the overall scope of the NASA Lewis High Performance Aircraft Propulsion Research Program. High performance fighter aircraft of interest include supersonic fighters with such capabilities as short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) and/or high maneuverability. The NASA Lewis effort involving STOVL propulsion systems is focused primarily on component-level experimental and analytical research. The high- maneuverability portion of this effort, called the High Alpha Technology Program (HATP), is part of a cooperative program among NASA's Lewis, Langley, Ames, and Dryden facilities. The overall objective of the NASA Inlet Experiments portion of the HATP, which NASA Lewis leads, is to develop and enhance inlet technology that will ensure high performance and stability of the propulsion system during aircraft maneuvers at high angles of attack. To accomplish this objective, both wind-tunnel and flight experiments are used to obtain steady-state and dynamic data, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) codes are used for analyses. This overview of the High Performance Aircraft Propulsion Research Program includes a sampling of the results obtained thus far and plans for the future.