U.S. Army Approach to On-Board Flight Performance Modeling

In order to supply Army aviators with on-board flight performance calculators and mission planning capabilities, flight performance models have been installed onto several Army rotorcraft. These models must be consistent, i.e., the pilot must obtain the same flight performance answers from these models, desktop performance/mission planners, and technical manuals. Additionally, on-board flight performance models must be efficient in both size and speed. Presented in this paper is an architecture and several numerical methods that support these requirements. The architecture and methodologies presented here are currently being applied to U.S. Army utility, cargo, attack and reconnaissance rotorcraft.