This document outlines the key considerations and tasks for a student design project on aircraft design. It discusses defining the problem and customers, assessing aircraft viability, understanding constraints, exploiting innovations, and organizing the design process. The document provides guidance on technical tasks like configuration selection, sizing, and drawings. It also addresses best practices for effective teamwork, such as managing meetings, assigning roles and responsibilities, and balancing individual strengths and weaknesses. The homework outlined is to summarize a textbook chapter, prepare a project plan and meeting templates, and define team member roles.

1. Aircraft Design
Aero474
Dr. Mohammad Tawfik
E-mail: Mohammad.tawfik@gmail.com
Aero474
Aircraft Design

2. Preliminary design
Aero474
Aircraft Design

3. Problem definition
• Who are the customers?
• How should we assess if the product is viable?
• Can we completely define the problem in terms that will
be useful to the technical design process?
• What are the new/novel features that we hope to exploit
to make our design better than the existing
competition and to build in flexibility to cater for future
developments?
• What is the best way to tackle the problem and how will
this be managed?
Aero474
Aircraft Design

4. The Customer (Stakeholders)
● Clients
● Operators
● Director
● Sales Team
● Environmentalists
● Politicians
● etc...
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Aircraft Design

5. Aircraft Viability
● How is the aircraft going to be judged?
A. W. Bishop of British Aerospace observed:
The message is clear – if everyone can agree beforehand on how to measure the effectiveness of the
design, then the designer has a much simpler task. But even if everyone does not agree, the designer
should still quantify his own ideas to give himself a sensible guide.
● Investors ==> Return on investment
● Civil aviation ==> Direct operating cost
● Military ==> Life cycle cost
● etc...
Aero474
Aircraft Design

6. Understanding the problem
● Has the problem been considered as
broadly as possible?
● Have you identified all the ‘real’ constraints
to the solution of the problem?
● Are all the constraints reasonable?
● Have you thoroughly examined all the non-
technical constraints to determine their
suitability?
Aero474
Aircraft Design

7. Innovation
● What are the new technologies and other
innovations that will be incorporated into
the design?
● How will such features provide an
advantage over existing/competing
aircraft?
● How can the risk to the project be
mitigated?
Aero474
Aircraft Design

8. Organising the design process
● Student's Check-list
● Team-working
● Managing design meetings
● Writing technical reports
● Technical presentation
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Aircraft Design

9. Student's Check-list
● Initial Question:
● What is the problem to be addressed?
● What information is available?
● What data on previous and competitor aircraft designs
can be found?
● Do we need to take into account any specific issues?
● Can you write a complete aircraft operational
requirement?
● What aircraft concepts might be considered?
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Aircraft Design

10. Technical Tasks
● Which configuration?
● Initial sizing
● Aerodynamic and performance estimates
● Check validity
● Generate initial technical drawings
● Refine initial estimates and conduct parametric study
● Produce final drawings and perform SWOT analysis
● Finalize report and presentation
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Aircraft Design

11. Team-working
● There are many advantages to the team approach to
design:
● Teaming brings together the strengths of a diverse group
of people.
● Team consensus usually results in a better product.
● Everyone on the team has a backup person to check his
work.
● Sharing the task makes the job easier and more fun.
● Teaming allows each member to use his or her talents in
a more focused way.
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Aircraft Design

12. Team-working
● Teaming also has disadvantages:
● The success of the team may be limited by its weakest
members.
● Some members may tend to procrastinate, delaying the
work of the entire team.
● Teaming makes it easier to blame problems on the least
liked or least productive member of the team.
● Personalities can get in the way of progress.
● The most energetic team members usually do more than
their fair share of the work.
Aero474
Aircraft Design

13. Homework #2
● Read Chapter 11 of the textbook!
● Prepare a summary of the chapter in the form of a report
and a presentation on it and the following
● Prepare a task breakdown and Gantt chart for the project
work
● Prepare a document presenting how your meeting will be
managed (a template for agenda and minutes should be
developed)
● Assign Roles including titles and responsibilities of each
team member
Aero474
Aircraft Design