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This paper describes the impact of noise on the civil aircraft design process. The challenge to design ‘silent’ aircraft is the development of efficient airframe-engine technologies, for which integration is essential to produce an optimum aircraft, otherwise penalties such as higher fuel consumption, and, or noise are a concern. A description of work completed by Cranfield University will cover design methodologies used for a Broad delta airframe concept, with reference to future studies into alternate concepts. Engine cycle designs for ultra-high bypass ratio, constant volume combustor, and recuperated propulsion cycles are described, with a discussion of integration challenges within the airframe.

The successful completion of aerospace projects usually involves the bringing together of many different specialist skills. The need for the engineer to become multidisciplined is today's reality, but this is becoming increasingly harder to achieve naturally in the working place. Recent industrial drives towards concurrent engineering have revealed a need for just this type of engineer. The 3 year part-time MSc course in Aircraft Engineering was designed to address these needs and was launched with the first intakes of delegates in 1995. The course is modular and students are encouraged to “mix” disciplines, combining topics such as avionics and structural analysis. The course has created skilled specialists and engineering leaders for the future, with improved technical ability and career potential, albeit at the cost of hard work! The course consists of 3 elements, namely:- Lecture courses held in one-week blocks, over the 3 year period. An individual piece of research.

This paper describes a computer code for conceptual design of mission optimized twin-turboprop Commuter or Regional aircraft. Optimum configurations and flight profiles of such aircraft are determined by coupling this code to an optimization code based on Simulated Annealing. As an example, minimum DOC configurations were determined for 50-seat Regional aircraft for operation over three stage lengths. The DOC per seat-nm and DOC per trip of the optimum aircraft were found to be comparable or significantly (8 to 17 %) lower than the corresponding values for five contemporary 40 to 50 seater aircraft for short stage lengths.