A ten-year engineering research project on a super/hypersonic transport propulsion system (HYPR) initiated by AIST (Agency of Industrial Science and Technology) in 1989 has been successfully completed. The HYPR project was aimed at establishing the technology base for a propulsion system of supersonic/hypersonic transport (SST/HST) aircraft that will fly as fast as Mach 5. The project proved the feasibility of a combined cycle engine (CCE) for SST/HST by developing and running the world's first CCE , a combination of a variable cycle turbofan engine (VCE) and a methane-fuelled ramjet. The development of the CCE began with a variety of component tests, followed by the development of the high temperature core engine (HTCE) and VCE. This step-by-step approach led to steady and solid success.

Based on this success, a new project was started in 1999, titled "Research and development of environmentally compatible propulsion system for next generation supersonic transport (ESPR)."

This paper introduces the various achievements during the ten years of the HYPR project, and the prospects of the upcoming ESPR project.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Micro Adaptive Flow Control programme is described using a series of illustrative examples. Adaptive flow control is defined to be the active modification of aerodynamic flows using small, time-dependent actuators in judiciously chosen locations. A diverse set of large-scale applications is described, in which micro adaptive flow control has a substantial overall system benefit.

During the past decade, the Navy has considerably improved its capabilities in aircraft-weapon integration. In 1989 it took more than 400 hours of wind-tunnel testing, which cost $1,5000,000, and 20 flights to clear the JSOW from the F-18 to Mach 0·95. This year the Mk-83 JDAM was cleared after only 60 hours of wind-tunnel testing and five flights to the full F-18 aircraft envelope of Mach 1·3. This reduction occurred because the Navy not only learned to test smarter, but also developed an integrated approach to modelling and simulation (M&S), wind-tunnel and flight testing which allowed lessons learned on previous programmes to be applied to new ones. However, the present approach still requires a fairly large commitment of time and financial resources to accomplish the mission.

The present approach has optimised the use of available resources; any further gains will have to come not by improving existing techniques, but by bringing new resources into the process.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration sponsored a joint High-Speed Research Programme with United States airframe and propulsion companies to provide the critical high-risk technologies for a Mach 2·4, 300 passenger civil transport. Laboratory and medium-scale tests provided promising results in meeting both the environmental and economic goals for a future High-Speed Civil Transport. However, before the technologies were integrated at large and full scale, the programme was cancelled because of global economic concerns of the US transport industry.

This paper presents results from a joint Lockheed Martin/NASA Glenn effort to design and verify an ultra-compact, highly-survivable engine inlet subsonic duct based on the emerging technology of active inlet flow control (AIFC). In the AIFC concept, micro-scale actuation (∼mm in size) is used in an approach denoted ‘secondary flow control’ to intelligently alter a serpentine duct's inherent secondary flow characteristics with the goal of simultaneously improving the critical system-level performance metrics of total pressure recovery, spatial distortion, and RMS turbulence. In this approach, separation control is a secondary benefit, not a design requirement. The baseline concept for this study was a 4:1 aspect ratio ultra-compact (LID= 2·5) serpentine duct that fully obscured line-of-sight view of the engine face. At relevant flow conditions, this type of duct exhibits excessive pressure loss and distortion because of extreme wall curvature. Two sets of flow control effectors were designed with the intent of establishing high performance levels to the baseline duct. The first set used two arrays of 36 co-rotating microvane vortex generators (VGs); the second set used two arrays of 36 micro air-jet (microjet) VGs, which were designed to produce the same ‘vorticity signature’ as the microvanes. Optimisation of the microvane array was accomplished using a design of experiments (DOE) methodology to guide selection of parameters used in multiple Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) flow solutions. A verification test conducted in the NASA Glenn W1B test facility indicated low pressure recovery and high distortion for the baseline duct without flow control. With microvane flow control, at a throat Mach number of 0·60, pressure recovery was increased 5%, and both spatial distortion and turbulence were decreased approximately 50%. Microjet effectors also provided significantly improved performance over the baseline configuration.

'Better, faster, cheaper’ (BFC) emerged in the 1990s as a new paradigm for aerospace products. In this paper, we examine some of the underlying reasons for BFC and offer some thoughts to help frame the thinking and action of aerospace industry professionals in this new era. Examination of literature on industrial innovation indicates that aeronautical products have evolved to a ‘dominant design’ and entered the ‘specific phase’ of their product life cycle. Innovation in this phase centers on: incremental product improvement, especially for productivity and quality; process technology; technological innovations that offer superior substitutes. The first two of these are aligned with BFC objectives.

The concepts of ‘value’ and ‘best lifecycle value’ are introduced as conceptual frameworks. Value is offered as a metric for BFC. Risk management is intimately tied to achieving value and needs to be integrated into aeronautical processes. The process technology area is addressed by considering ‘lean’ practices for design, engineering and manufacturing. Illustrative results of process improvements from the seven-year Lean Aerospace Initiative research programme at MIT indicate opportunities to achieve BFC. Concluding remarks offer some challenges to industry, government and academics in aeronautical design, engineering and manufacturing.

The NASA tetrahedral unstructured software system (TetrUSS) was developed during the 1990s to provide a rapid aerodynamic analysis and design capability to applied aerodynamicists. The system comprises of loosely integrated, user-friendly software that enables the application of advanced Euler and Navier-Stokes tetrahedral finite volume technology to complex aerodynamic problems. TetrUSS has matured well because of the generous feedback from many willing users representing a broad cross-section of background and skill levels. This paper presents an overview of the current capabilities of the TetrUSS system along with some representative results from selected applications.