An aircraft design and analysis tool for a fifth-generation fighter jet: a flight mechanics perspective

Date

2025-1-6

Author

Kırkar, Atakan

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Fifth-generation fighters have been in service since 2005, though the technology search studies can be traced back to 1971. Until today, not much has been studied that is peculiar to the flight mechanics analysis of this fighter class. This study focuses on conceptual geometric drawing, control surface sizing, and initial aerodynamic database generation, for which OpenVSP, analytical methods, and Digital DATCOM are utilized. The thesis discusses the generation of fighter jets, conceptual aircraft design software, aerodynamic database generation methods, and the adopted stability and control methodologies in detail. The concept of relaxed static stability is described and exemplified. A substantial emphasis is put on the stability and control derivatives, for which a detailed discussion is provided in the Appendices. The dynamic stability is addressed in terms of linearized methods. The military specifications and standards are followed to meet the Level 1 flying qualities in the closed-loop sense, even with simple controllers. The maneuver analyses are obtained and presented as output by a proprietary design tool called ADA, which the author wrote in MATLAB and utilizes reduced-order trim methods. The analyses revealed that the designed aircraft looks and behaves like a conceptual fifth-generation aircraft, which should deliver sufficient ideas for initial assessments. Rich appendices are provided to guide the researchers who wish to conduct further studies on the subject. By forming a stability and control derivatives section for each generation of fighter jets, a contribution to the literature has been made.

Subject Keywords

Fighter jets, Flight mechanics, Maneuver analysis, Design tool, Digital DATCOM

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/113380

Collections

Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis