This study investigates the optimisation of design variables for the unconventional Flying-V-900 aircraft to minimise its climate impact, taking into account operational costs. The study
examines the compromises between operational costs and climate factors. A multidisciplinary
analysis and optimisation framework is developed in order to minimise the Flying-V-900’s
impact on global warming, cash operating costs, and fuel efficiency. This study investigates
the influence of geometry, turbofan engine, and mission design variables on these objectives.
The findings indicated that fuel- and cost-optimised designs demonstrated nearly identical
performance, whereas a climate-optimised design exhibited contradictory performance. These
results indicate that adopting a climate-optimised Flying-V-900 could potentially reduce the
impact of global warming compared to a conventional aircraft, as measured by the average
temperature response over a 100-year period, by approximately 60%. However, it is important
to note that this transition would come with a significant increase in cash operating costs,
specifically by 32%. This analysis considers the impacts of both CO2 and non-CO2 factors,
including contrail formation and NO𝑥 emissions. It demonstrates that the climate-optimised
Flying-V aircraft give priority to flying at a low altitude of 6km and a velocity of Mach 0.60 in
order to minimise contrail formation and NO𝑥 emissions. However, achieving this requires a
20% increase in fleet size to maintain productivity.

This report provides an overview of the considerations and decisionsmade during the DSE project from the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, arriving at the final design of the SolidityONE. The goal was to design a vertical take-off and landing vehicle according to the rules from the 37th annual student design competition by the Vertical Flight Society. This design proves the concept of a rotor with disk solidity equal to or larger than 1.0. Additionally, benefits this design has over existing rotorcraft mean it can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific market...