Revolutionary Runway Independent Aircraft Flight Simulation Technology

A potentially key element of meeting NASA?s objective of dramatically increasing aviation system capacity is the utilization of runway independent aircraft (RIAs) to provide feeder service to major airports. Among the challenges in enabling high-volume terminal area RIA operations are identifying potential hazards of this flight regime and developing simulation technology for a complex aeromechanical environment involving the interaction of multiple types of air vehicles (e.g, RIA, fixed-wing,V/STOL). Fast, high-fidelity full-vehicle aeromechanical models and simulation tools are thus needed for RIAs that may be used in such roles. To meet this need, a suite of physics-based tools are being developed that capture challenging problems such as vortex wake encounters, modeling the airwakes of structures/terrain, ?self-interactions? such as vortex ring state, full vehicle gust response, and surface/ground vortex effects. Key technical innovations include novel fast viscous/turbulent wake decay methodologies tailored to RIAs, coupled with state of the art Real Time Free Wake simulation capabilities of CDI?s CHARM full-aircraft analysis. The effort will yield a Multiple Aircraft Simulation Tool (MAST) that will permit both off-line assessment and on-line, real-time flight simulation of RIA and non-RIA vehicles for flight planning, operational training, and evaluation of pilot workload and situational awareness requirements.