DEFINITION:

The spreading out of landing gears which provokes an increase of the drag and a negative pitching moment which can modify the behaviour of the aircraft and these aerodynamic phenomena have to be taken in account in flight model for the approach phase and take-off. On the other part, the landing gears increase the aerodynamic noise and some solutions are searched to minimize this nuisance.

Antenna but also mainly pods are also sources of extra drag and possible aeroelastic problems. The external carriage of stores causes a drag penalty for the aircraft. Fuel tanks (and missiles for military aircraft) dramatically reduce the range of the aircraft and induce modifications of the static margin. At transonic speeds, unstable shock waves are located on stores and can cause damages on control surfaces. Store carriage optimisation aims at reducing drag penalty (conformal pack), flow unsteadiness as well as radar signature.

Evaluation of store trajectories during release is needed for flight security.

(Source: ACARE Domain 107)

SUBDOMAINS:

1. Computational Fluid Dynamics
2. Wind Tunnel Testing
3. Aerodynamic noise
4. Unsteady flow
5. Radar signature
6. Landing Gear
7. Flight / Ground Tests
8. Pod