Sub-scale flight test model design: Developments, challenges and opportunities

Growing interest in unconventional aircraft designs coupled with miniaturization of electronics and advancements in manufacturing techniques have revived the interest in the use of Sub-scale Flight Testing (SFT) to study the flight behaviour of full-scale aircraft in the early stages of design process by means of free-flying sub-scale models....

Degree of similitude estimation for sub-scale flight testing

Sub-scaled Physical Models (SPM) are often employed in wind-tunnel tests or in free-flight tests (physical tests) to predict flight behavior of aircraft Full-scale Design (FD). However, a quality prediction of both the static and dynamic behavior is to date an open challenge. In this research, a methodology for designing SPMs is proposed for...

Assessment of Sub-scale Designs for Scaled Flight Testing

Sub-scale Flight Testing (SFT) is potentially useful in predicting aircraft flight behaviour, especially in the case of unconventional designs for which legacy information is unavailable and wind tunnel tests are unable to predict aircraft dynamics. A necessary condition for SFT is the design of properly scaled models. However, even in case of...

Aerodynamic investigation of an over-the-wing propeller for distributed propulsion

This paper addresses the aerodynamic performance and numerical modeling of over-the-wing propellers. Installing the propeller above a wing has the potential to increase wing lift-to-drag ratio, high-lift capabilities, and to reduce flyover noise. However, the prediction of its performance is difficult, since research on the aerodynamic...