This paper presents a combined experimental and computational study of annular cavities on a semi-angle cone in a Mach 8·9 flow. A range of cavity length-to-depth ratios has been considered, and a parameter has been determined that distinguishes between ‘weak oscillations’ and ‘strong oscillations’ of the cavity flow. Essentially the work identifies the transition from the case where the flow can be regarded as ‘pure cavity flow’ to that where the flow behaviour is tending towards that of a ‘spiked blunt body’. The CFD simulations also suggest that, for a certain range of cavity scale, the limiting cavity flow state depends upon the flow initialisation process; it may be weak or strongly oscillating.

Technology developments in radar frequency simulators of the type used to verify the performance of complex electronic warfare systems are described. The successful verification of this performance prior to combat use is a necessary pre-requisite of military platform survivability and mission success. These simulators and associated modelling and analysis tools have enabled a major shift during the last 15 years from expensive and limited flight trials to repeatable laboratory and anechoic chamber tests, although they will never totally supplant those trials. Most limitations of the early days of many-channel simulators, 25 years ago, have been resolved or adequately and – as importantly – affordably mitigated, largely enabled by computing power increases. Limitations remain that will, within affordability constraints driven by Defence Ministries worldwide, prevent perfect simulation (‘emulation’) and the attendant, tantalising but utopian goal of laboratory and chamber test results that precisely match those from flight test and combat.

Various programmes are underway internationally to establish legislative instruments for regulating civil and military unmanned aerial vehicles and systems. An analysis of a selection of these programmes revealed that the approaches used for airworthiness regulation are not harmonised and are usually limited to specific unmanned aerial vehicle types, indicating the need for a generic framework for airworthiness requirements. A functional Reference Framework for unmanned aerial vehicle and system airworthiness requirements was developed using Annex 8 of the Chicago Convention as a reference basis, supplemented with airworthiness procedures and functional requirements derived from manned aircraft regulations, unmanned aerial vehicle and system airworthiness material, and flightworthiness guidelines for reusable launch vehicles. Various airworthiness elements were identified for which further research is required to develop appropriate airworthiness requirements. This paper summarises the development of the framework and proposes the Reference Framework as a functional basis for generating comprehensive South African civil and military airworthiness requirements for unmanned aerial vehicles and systems.

This issue of the Aeronautical Journal celebrates the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Honours Degree Course in Aeronautical Engineering at the Victoria University of Manchester. The following article therefore describes the aeronautical research and teaching activities of that university up to its recent amalgamation with the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) to form the present-day University of Manchester. This juncture provides a further justification for recording the Victoria University’s achievements.

Both the Victoria University and UMIST had their roots in the nineteenth century although, apart from the relatively brief period of the First World War, neither of them was particularly involved in aeronautics until after the Second World War. However, as Sections 6.0-10.0 seek to demonstrate, thereafter the Victoria University’s involvement became considerable. The preceding Sections describe the origins of the Victoria University and UMIST and, in the case of the former institution, the subsequent activities of its staff and graduates in engineering and mathematics which, although not always specifically aeronautical in content, nonetheless had a profound influence on the development of the aeronautical sciences.

Problems related with the mathematical modelling and eigenvibration of a tiltrotor aircraft-wing system built up of anisotropic composite materials are investigated. The wing-mounted rotor that can tilt from the vertical position to a horizontal one is modelled and analysed from the vibrational point of view. In this sense, its behaviour is analysed as a function of the mass size, mass moment of inertia, tilt angle and spin speed of the spinning rotor and of its location along the wing span. While the rotor is considered to be rigid, the aircraft wing is modelled as a thin-walled beam that features a doubly-symmetric cross-section contour and incorporates the elastic coupling between flap-lag-transverse shear, on one hand, and between extension-twist, on the other hand. Numerical simulations are provided and pertinent conclusions are outlined.

The development of a parametric-based indirect aircraft structural usage monitoring system using artificial neural networks is described. Flight parametric data, captured during Operational Loads Measurement have been used to predict strains or stresses at key structural locations for several military aircraft types, using mapping relationships determined by artificial neural networks. A framework for the development of a neural network-based structural usage monitor is discussed and the basic architecture of the multilayer perceptron artificial neural network is described. Additionally, results from case studies are presented. It is concluded that this technology could provide the basis for accurate, cost-effective structural usage monitoring systems across the range of military aircraft types and roles.

The establishment of the UK Applied Aerodynamics Consortium in 2004 brought together many of the UK’s leading research groups to tackle challenging aerodynamic problems on the national computing facility, HPCx. This paper provides a brief history of some early pioneers of numerical simulation and highlights some key contributions to development in parallel processing that laid the foundations for today’s researchers. The transition from vector to massively parallel processing is discussed from a UK viewpoint along with technological barriers that could have a significant impact on future systems. Solutions to these barriers are already being sought and the paper discussed some of the novel technologies that may be deployed in the future. In its short history, the consortium has made substantial progress and this is briefly discussed with several highlights that illustrate the scientific output. Although a number of challenges are identified, particularly with respect to developing a comprehensive visualisation capability, the consortium is well placed to build upon its initial success.

The supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet, is the engine cycle most suitable for sustained hypersonic flight in the atmosphere. This article describes some of the challenges facing scramjet designers, and the methods currently used for the calculation of scramjet performance. It then reviews the HyShot 2 and Hyper-X flight programs as examples of how sub-scale flights are now being used as important steps towards the development of operational systems. Finally, it describes some recent advances in three-dimensional scramjets with application to hypersonic cruise and multi-stage access-to-space vehicles.

The paper is primarily concerned with the modelling of aircraft manufacturing cost. The aim is to establish an integrated life cycle balanced design process through a systems engineering approach to interdisciplinary analysis and control. The cost modelling is achieved using the genetic causal approach that enforces product family categorisation and the subsequent generation of causal relationships between deterministic cost components and their design source. This utilises causal parametric cost drivers and the definition of the physical architecture from the Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to identify product families. The paper presents applications to the overall aircraft design with a particular focus on the fuselage as a subsystem of the aircraft, including fuselage panels and localised detail, as well as engine nacelles. The higher level application to aircraft requirements and functional analysis is investigated and verified relative to life cycle design issues for the relationship between acquisition cost and Direct Operational Cost (DOC), for a range of both metal and composite subsystems. Maintenance is considered in some detail as an important contributor to DOC and life cycle cost. The lower level application to aircraft physical architecture is investigated and verified for the WBS of an engine nacelle, including a sequential build stage investigation of the materials, fabrication and assembly costs. The studies are then extended by investigating the acquisition cost of aircraft fuselages, including the recurring unit cost and the non-recurring design cost of the airframe sub-system. The systems costing methodology is facilitated by the genetic causal cost modeling technique as the latter is highly generic, interdisciplinary, flexible, multilevel and recursive in nature, and can be applied at the various analysis levels required of systems engineering. Therefore, the main contribution of paper is a methodology for applying systems engineering costing, supported by the genetic causal cost modeling approach, whether at a requirements, functional or physical level.

The application of optical imaging techniques to hypersonic facilities is discussed and examples of experimental measurements are provided. Traditional Schlieren and shadowgraph techniques still remain as inexpensive and easy to use flow visualisation techniques. With the advent of faster cameras, these methods are becoming increasingly important for time-resolved high-speed imaging. Interferometry’s quantitative nature is regularly used to obtain density information about hypersonic flows. Recent developments have seen an extension of the types of flows that can be imaged and the measurement of other flow parameters such as ionisation level. Planar laser induced fluorescence has been used to visualise complex flows and to measure such quantities as temperature and velocity. Future directions for optical imaging are discussed.

Key issues relating to the Supersonic Business Jet (SBJ) concept are reviewed with the intent to assess the readiness of enabling technologies and hence the concept itself. The multidisciplinary nature of aircraft design precludes an in-depth analysis of each specific aspect, which could individually be the subject of a separate discipline review, hence an overview is presented.

The review looks at the market, environmental issues, with particular reference to the sonic boom phenomenon & solutions, technological issues, including prediction methods, flight testing, systems, certification and interested aerospace companies and design organisations.

It is apparent that the need to reduce the sonic boom signature is vital if the vehicle is to be permitted to operate over land and hence be economically viable. It is clear that sonic boom acceptability requirements must be set if resources are to be effectively focused and designs are to converge. Despite this challenge, considerable investment is aimed at de-risking many of the enabling technologies and raising readiness levels. Many technologies are moving beyond theoretical and numerical analysis into the experimental and flight test domains. Collaboration between the civil and military sectors is increasing.

Clearly, supersonic air travel is not an efficient means of personal conveyance; however, concerns for the environment are difficult to balance against the ‘value of time’ benefits offered by the SBJ concept. Air travel, of which this is a specialised form, is important to the global economy. Continued effort in the areas of human factors, customer demand and certification & requirements would be beneficial.

The influence of finite aspect ratio and yaw on the computed indicial response of a pitching wing has been studied using numerical solutions of the unsteady Euler equations. The indicial response was obtained directly from computations of the unsteady flow around two- and three-dimensional wings subjected to a step change in incidence at Mach numbers between 0·2 and 0·7. The data reveal several important characteristics in the behaviour of the unsteady response of three-dimensional wings. The initial response is shown to be independent of both aspect ratio and yaw confirming the results of linearized theory. During the subsequent development of the unsteady response significant differences are observed between the two- and three-dimensional behaviours as a consequence of changes to both wing aspect ratio and yaw angle. The formation and spanwise propagation of acoustic waves due to finite aspect ratio is shown to have a significant influence on the development of the unsteady forces, while for yawed wings the results indicate that the manner in which the windward and leeward tip vortices form is important. Based upon these observations it is suggested that the current practice within the rotorcraft community in which two-dimensional indicial response functions are employed may be unreliable for the advancing blade.

The paper discusses the development and application activities within the Aero-Physics and Measurement Technology Laboratory at the University of Manchester on pressure sensitive paint and thermographic phosphor optical imaging systems for gas dynamic applications. It provides a brief review of the basic principles, fundamental theory, properties, chemical characteristics and bonding technologies associated with the two systems. A number of case studies are presented, which exhibit the range of applicability, limitations and potential for further development of the technologies.

This paper describes an experiment which was performed using an offshore transport helicopter to investigate the impact of the rotor blades upon Global Positioning System (GPS) reception.

The test aircraft was fitted with two separate GPS antennas which were positioned to isolate the effects caused by the main and tail rotors. Testing was undertaken with the aircraft on the ground and this allowed an assessment to be performed at different rotor speeds with accurate control over the relative geometry between the antenna, rotors and satellites.

Recorded data from a measurement system incorporating three dissimilar GPS receivers (including a technical standard order (TSO)-C129() compliant aviation unit and a custom research receiver) was analysed to identify the effect of the rotors at the correlator level and to determine the impacts upon ranging accuracy, the availability of ranging measurements, and the receivers’ signal level estimates.

Correlation data was used to demonstrate that the rotor blades were capable of generating both destructive and constructive interference effects, and the periodic nature of these oscillations was shown to correspond directly to the blade passing frequency. It was identified that signal degradation was not limited to satellite signal paths which intersected the rotor discs.

No evidence was found for any increase in code measurement error due to the rotor interference, but it was demonstrated that there could be a significant impact upon a receiver’s ability to maintain continuous tracking of the satellite signals. The overall effect of this availability problem for a given installation and type of operation will be dependent upon satellite geometry and other factors which are beyond the scope of this study.

The ability of a receiver to identify the presence of rotor interference was investigated by examining estimates of carrier-to-noise, and this revealed inconsistencies between the results from different receivers implying differences in the estimation algorithms employed. It was also identified that two alternative ‘textbook’ estimators do not give identical results in the presence of rotor interference and it is suggested that such data should therefore be interpreted with caution.

Numerous military platforms (land, sea and air) feature serial data bus technology based on the US MIL-STD-1553B data bus standard for integration of their digital systems. Many of these platforms have 15-20 years of operational life remaining, but the installed 1553B data buses (data networks) having only a 1Mbit/sec transfer rate are unable to meet many of the future data networking requirements. Research into new, higher performance data networks has concentrated on modern alternatives with throughput increases of two to three orders of magnitude (100Mbit/sec to 1Gbit/sec). These are generally based on modern commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) standards, good examples being Ethernet and Fibre Channel. Some are already being employed in military platforms having been ruggedised for the harsh physical and electro-magnetic environment. However these COTS systems while being a natural choice for new platforms may not be cost effective for upgrading older platforms. This paper plots the history of MIL-STD-1553, possibly the most successful military platform standard of all time, and discusses some of the options for increasing its performance and economically extending its life into the future.

The well-known ant colony optimisation (ACO) meta-heuristic is applied to optimise the parameters of a new fuzzy command to line-of-sight (CLOS) guidance law. The new guidance scheme includes two phases, a midcourse and a terminal phase. In the first phase, a lead strategy is utilised which reduces the acceleration demands. A proportional derivative (PD) fuzzy sliding mode controller is used as the main tracking controller of the first phase. Moreover, a supervisory controller is coupled with the main tracking controller to guarantee the missile flight within the beam. In the terminal phase, a pure CLOS guidance law without lead angle is utilised. For this phase, a new hybrid fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (PID) fuzzy sliding mode controller is proposed as a high precision tracking controller. The parameters of the proposed controllers for the first and the second phases are optimised using ACO. In this regard, the recently developed continuous ant colony system (CACS) algorithm is extended to multi-objective optimisation problems and utilised to optimise the parameters of the pre-constructed fuzzy controllers. The performance of the resulting guidance law is evaluated at different engagement scenarios and compared with the well-known feedback linearisation method. The comparison is also made in the presence of measurement noise.

A detailed and accurate three-dimensional finite element stress analysis was conducted on countersunk rivet holes in a plate subjected to tension loading. The analysis included a wide range of countersunk depths, plate thicknesses, countersunk angles and plate widths. The study confirmed some of the previous results, addressed their differences, provided many new results, and investigated countersunk angle and width effects. Using the detailed FE results and the limiting conditions, a design equation for stress concentration was developed and verified.

In this paper, a simple static compressible flow model for circular synthetic jet actuators is described. It is used to undertake a systematic computational investigation of the effect of changing actuator geometrical and operating parameters on the magnitude of peak jet velocity at the orifice exit of an actuator whose diaphragm displacement and frequency are allowed to vary independently. It is found that, depending on the flow conditions inside the orifice duct, the actuator may operate in two distinct regimes, i.e. the Helmholtz resonance regime and the viscous flow regime. In the Helmholtz resonance regime, the resultant synthetic jet is generated by the mass physically displaced by the oscillating diaphragm coupled with the Helmholtz resonance in the actuator. In the viscous flow regime, the Helmholtz resonance is completely damped by viscous effect such that the jet is produced by the diaphragm oscillation alone. The relationship between actuator geometrical and operating parameters at the optimum condition which yields the maximum peak jet velocity at a given diaphragm displacement is also established for these two regimes. Finally, a preliminary procedure for designing synthetic jet actuators for flow separation control on an aircraft wing is proposed.

This paper presents investigations of low-Reynolds-number flows past an SD7003 aerofoil at Re = 60k, where transition takes place across a laminar separation bubble (LSB). Results of experimental measurements and numerical calculations are analysed and discussed. In particular, reasonably good results were obtained using two different numerical approaches: Large-eddy simulation (LES) that demonstrated vortical structures at different transition stages, and where the transition occurred naturally; unsteady Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) simulations for several turbulence models based on the ω-length-scale equation, coupled to a linear stability solver to predict the transition position.