As civil aviation expands, environmental aspects and fuel savings are becoming increasingly important. Amongst technologies proposed for more efficient flight, air-to-air refuelling (AAR), ‘hopping’ and flying in close formation (drag reduction), all have significant possibilities. It will be interesting to know also how these technologies may co-exist e.g. AAR and formation flying.

In military use, AAR is virtually indispensable. Its benefits are real and largely proven in hostile and demanding scenarios. We present a case for applying AAR in a civil context to show that substantial reductions in fuel burn for long-range missions are achievable. Overall savings, including the fuel used during the tanker missions, would be of the order of 30-40% fuel and 35-40% financial. These are very significant in terms of the impact on aviation’s contribution to reducing atmospheric pollution.

AAR allows smaller, efficient (greener) aircraft optimised for about 3,000nm range to fulfil long-range route requirements. This implies greater usage of smaller airports, relieving congestion and ATC demands on Hub airports. Problems due to shed vortices and wakes at airports are reduced. Smaller engines will be needed.

Integrated (accepted) AAR could lead to further benefits. Aircraft could take-off ‘light’, with minimum fuel and reserves and a planned AAR a few minutes into the flight. The ‘light’ aircraft would not require over-rating of the engines during take-off and would therefore be less noisy during take-off and climb-out, permitting more acceptable night operations.

The availability of civil AAR will enable opportunities for hitherto borderline technologies to be utilised in future aircraft. Laminar flow will provide fuel savings and increased efficiency in its own right but could be significantly enhanced within a civil AAR environment. Similarly, supersonic transport may become an acceptable economic option.

AAR affords the possibility of a complete widening of the design space and this should appeal to the imagination of current and future designers.

Since the late 1980s, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has been leading a programme of research aimed at improving the safety of offshore helicopter operations. The motivation for this initiative came from a major joint CAA/Industry review of helicopter airworthiness, commissioned in 1982. This study led to a number of research projects and other reviews which, in turn, led to further research projects. A total of over 20 projects have been undertaken covering airworthiness and operational issues, and covering helicopters and helidecks. This programme of work has been jointly funded and monitored by the UK CAA-run Helicopter Safety Research Management Committee (HSRMC). This paper provides a top-level summary of current activities on the seven main ‘live’ research projects.

In low-speed wind tunnel tests at α = 25 and 30º of a 45º delta wing with semicircular leading edges limit cycle oscillations occurred around the 50º roll trim angle. In some cases the oscillations were highly regular, in other cases, highly irregular. An analysis of the observed roll-oscillation dynamics has shown that several viscous flow phenomena are involved, which depend strongly on the leading-edge geometry, and whose relative importance can vary dramatically with the existing Reynolds number in critical flow regions. The possible role of surface roughness in modifying the viscous flow/motion coupling to cause these dramatically different test results is examined.

This paper describes the development of a wind turbulence criterion for the safe operation of helicopters to offshore installations. The development of the criterion was recommended following a review of the environmental effects around offshore platform helidecks.

Currently, criteria exist for ambient temperature and for vertical wind component in the vicinity of helidecks, but a questionnaire-based survey of helicopter pilots revealed that the principal safety hazard and source of highest workload is turbulence around offshore installations. The new turbulence criterion will plug a long-standing gap in the guidance on offshore helideck design.

The paper describes how the criterion has been developed using piloted flight simulation in a research flight simulator together with data from wind tunnel tests on offshore platforms. Initial validation has been successfully performed, and extended to include correlation with the large database of helicopter operational flight data records being collected through the UK North Sea Helicopter Operations Monitoring Programme (HOMP).

The turbulence criterion will be used, together with existing criteria on vertical wind component and temperature, in the assessment of new offshore installation designs, or proposed modifications to existing designs, to determine wind conditions where turbulence is likely to be excessive for safe helicopter operations. These will be used to estimate helideck operability and thereby inform the installation topsides design process, and will provide input to the setting and maintenance of helicopter operational limitations for individual installations.

The work will lead to improved safety through better prediction of safe operating envelopes and helideck operability at the design stage. In addition, development of the work is expected to enable the wind environment around offshore installations to be mapped and monitored in-service using helicopter flight data records.

The new turbulence criterion has been included in updated guidance on helideck design, and offshore installation designers are now required to inform helicopter operators about wind conditions which result in violations of the turbulence criterion on their offshore installations (as is currently the case for the temperature and vertical wind component criteria).

Multidisciplinary design and innovative highly automated manufacturing methods are increasingly important to today’s aircraft industry: multidis-ciplinary design because it reduces lead-time and results in a better design, and automated manufacturing methods because they are more capable and reduce manufacturing cost. In this paper a cost estimation model is presented that integrates the manufacturing cost of friction stir welded connections within a multidisciplinary design decision tool. Due to the fact that friction stir welding is a new manufacturing method, the cost estimation model is based on the actual process physics, meaning what the process looks like in terms of processing speeds and characteristics. As an integral part of a multidisciplinary design framework, the developed cost estimation model contributes to a design support tool that assesses not only manufacturing but also structural and aerodynamic issues. It is shown that the cost model developed can be integrated into this more holistic design process support architecture. The predicted costs are accurate to the historical data and allow tradeoff of manufacturing and economic considerations within the context of the multidisciplinary design tool. The tradeoff capability is highlighted through a presented case study that compares the friction stir welding process as an alternative solution to more tradition riveting. Most importantly, this results in a quantitative tradeoff between two processes that shows the manufacturing cycle time of friction stir welding to be reduced by 60% and the recurring assembly cost by 20%.

Experiments have been performed documenting the pressure field on the lee-side of a delta-wing at three incidence angles (5°, 10°, and 15°) and at Mach 1·8 using a PSP (Pressure Sensitive Paint) technique. The delta-wing model having a leading edge sweep of 60° was instrumented with 31 spanwise pressure ports at 68% of mean chord location. The Optrod-B1 binary paint was utilised and the PSP images were processed employing a resection based methodology. The comparisons of PSP results with those measured employing pressure taps show good agreement at different incidence angles.