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RDS-Professional is a conceptual aircraft design and analysis system developed for operation on a personal computer. Based on the methods in the AIAA textbook ‘Aircraft Design: A Conceptual Approach’, RDS features a 3-D CAD module for design layout, and has analysis modules for aerodynamics, weights, propulsion, and cost. RDS includes capabilities for aircraft sizing, mission analysis, and performance analysis including takeoff, landing, rate of climb, Ps, fs, turn rate, and acceleration. RDS also provides graphical output for drag polars, L/D ratio, thrust curves, flight envelope, and range parameter, and features both traditional carpet plot optimization and a multivariable design optimizer. Comparative studies indicate that RDS-Professional produces results within the usual accuracy for conceptual design efforts.

A PC-based program module was developed to simultaneously optimize an aircraft for thrust-to-weight ratio, wing loading, aspect ratio, sweep, taper ratio, and thickness ratio, in the presence of performance constraints, to a selected weight or cost measure-of-merit. A simple yet robust optimization scheme was employed, relying on the ever-increasing power of personal computers to permit exhaustive searching by a simple gradient method rather than using some more-sophisticated but more complex and perhaps less-robust optimization strategy. Results indicate the program works, within the limitations of the classical analysis methods used.

RDS-Professional is a sophisticated yet friendly PC-based aircraft design and analysis system developed for the conceptual design of new aircraft and the initial analysis of derivatives and alternate missions. RDS-Professional is suitable for use by aircraft designers in industry, government, and academia for conceptual trade studies, technology evaluations, and preliminary performance predictions. This paper provides an overview of RDS-Professional and illustrates its usage for design of a general aviation aircraft.

This paper discusses the creation of the aerodynamic analysis module of a PC-based aircraft design program called “RDS”, using the time-honored aerodynamic methods found in classical textbooks and the USAF DATCOM. Using this program, reasonably realistic aerodynamic results can be calculated in less than an hour given the geometric inputs which define an aircraft, such as component wetted areas, wing geometry, and cross-section areas. Aerodynamics analysis in RDS includes parasite drag (subsonic and supersonic), drag due to lift, lift curve slope, and maximum lift. Comparisons to T-38 data show good results.