Luca Benassi, Carlo Aquilini

DOI Number: N/A

Conference number: IFASD-2019-052

Currently, more than 40 high altitude unmanned aircraft programs are in various stages of development. Major players in this market include Airbus Defence and Space, TCOM, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Lindstrand Technologies, Israel Aerospace Industries, ILC Dover, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, AeroVironment, Aerostar International, Google and Facebook. This paper shows the design evolution of a high altitude and highly flexible unmanned aircraft. Emphasis is given to the Structural Dynamics and Loads aspects, which allow the aircraft to fulfil its very demanding mission: Staying airborne for over 100 days in the stratosphere. As it always happens in our Industry, safety of flight, performance, and mission assurance require a fine balance of ingredients and compromises. With this aircraft, the most severe load cases do not occur at cruise, where the aircraft spends 99% of the time, but during the remaining 1%. Therefore, there is the need to revisit most of the Structural Dynamics and Loads basic principles in order to obtain the absolute minimum solution, required to survive during that 1%.

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In Categories: Modeling for Design of Highly Flexible Aircraft
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