A performance comparison and tradeoff study was conducted between eight unique aircraft configurations for high performance light aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles. These configurations included conventional tractor, conventional pusher, canard, tandem-wing, joined-wing, and 3-surface designs, which were analyzed though the use of microcomputer-based performance and lattice-vortex programs. Actual experimental aircraft were utilized as models which were scaled to a useful load of 600 pounds and given a common powerplant of 115 horsepower. The joined-wing, tandem-wing and conventional pusher were found to exhibit sufficient improvement over a conventional tractor configuration to warrant serious consideration for design selection. The performance and stability programs provided reasonably accurate predictions of aircraft performance when given actual aircraft dimensions and power available data and warrant use for preliminary aircraft design.

Subjects: Microcomputers; Aircraft design; remotely piloted vehicle; RPV; configuration; experimental aircraft