The aerodynamic design of the Miles M.52 experimental supersonic aircraft is reviewed relative to the state of knowledge at its time of 1943 – 1946. Drawing on widely-ranging material, much not previously published, this study enlarges upon, and in places amends, previous accounts of the project.

Based on advice collated from the fields of aerodynamics and ballistics, Miles conceived an original and forward-looking design, backed by an extensive test programme. Novel solutions to new requirements in the areas of structures and systems provided a robust airframe, showing fair prospects of being stable and controllable throughout the specified flight envelope. An equally innovative power plant was devised for it by Whittle’s company, Power Jets Ltd.

Contradictory predictions of its performance were made by Miles and the RAE, through differences in their estimations of fuselage drag. A new evaluation suggests that the available information would have shown the aircraft to be capable of providing vital aerodynamic data for the transonic and early supersonic regimes at a time when no other sources were available, though further engine development would be needed for it to reach its full potential.

For aerodynamic design optimisation as well as for multidisciplinary design optimisation studies, it is very desirable to limit the number of the geometric design variables. In Ref. 1, a ‘fundamental’ parametric aerofoil geometry representation method was presented. The method included the introduction of a geometric ‘class function/shape function’ transformation technique, CST, such that round nose/sharp aft end geometries as well as other classes of geometries could be represented exactly by analytic well behaved and simple mathematical functions having easily observed physical features. The CST method was shown to describe an essentially limitless design space composed entirely of analytically smooth geometries. In Ref. 2, the CST methodology was extended to more general three dimensional applications such as wing, body, ducts and nacelles. It was shown that any general 3D geometry can be represented by a distribution of fundamental shapes, and that the ‘shape function/class function’ methodology can be used to describe the fundamental shapes as well as the distributions of the fundamental shapes. A number of applications of the ‘CST’ method to nacelles, ducts, wings and bodies were presented to illustrate the versatility of this new methodology. In this paper, the CST method is extended to include geometric warping such as variable camber, simple flap, aeroelastic and flutter deflections. The use of the CST method for geometric morphing of one geometric shape into another is also shown. The use of CST analytic wings in design optimisation will also be discussed.

Experimental and computational investigations have been made to obtain the details of the flow field of a supersonic air-intake with different cowl deflection angles and back pressures at the exit. The flow field obtained with an inviscid computation on the basic configuration, designed for Mach 2·2, shows starting behaviour whereas computation with k-ω turbulence model and experiments indicate unstart characteristics. Both experiments and computations indicate that provision of a small angle at the cowl tip leads to start of the same intake and also improves it’s performance. Results obtained with cowl deflection shows a better performance in comparison to performance achieved with a basic intake and with a bleed of 2·8%. Sustainable back pressure could be obtained through the computations made at different back pressures for different cowl deflection angles. Overall results suggest that provision of small cowl deflection angle itself leads to improvement in performance achieved in comparison to a bleed of 2·8%, even with back pressure at the exit.

This paper is devoted to modelling and control algorithms for a slung load transportation system composed of one or multiple helicopters, where the load is coupled by the means of flexible ropes (see Fig. 1). The coupled helicopter system overcomes the payload limitation of a single small size helicopter, while keeping most of its advantages: small costs of operation, low maintenance costs and increased safeness. Therefore, the system can be utilised whenever the use of full size helicopters is impossible, too expensive or prohibited by law. We focus on the deployment and repairing of distributed sensor networks, using a transportation system based on multiple small size helicopters. A possible real world application is the deployment of fire fighting equipment, where space limitation of the fire trucks prohibits the application of bigger UAVs and using full size helicopters is too dangerous. The problem of load transportation using one or two full size helicopters (twin lift helicopter system), connected to the load by means of flexible ropes, has been discussed in the aerospace research community at least since 1960. We have shown in our previous work that there is a fundamental difference in the mathematical description between small and full size helicopters. Therefore, also the control design for the case of small size helicopters needs to be different. To our knowledge, the control of a slung load transportation system composed of multiple small size helicopters has not been studied until now. In this paper, the complete mechanical setup of the slung load transportation system based on one or more small size helicopters is presented. This includes a short description of the used UAVs, the additionally required sensors, and how the load is mounted. A model of one/multiple helicopters transporting a load is introduced. This model is used in a simplified form for the controller design and in full form for simulation. The controller for one and two helicopters, which is based on a state feedback controller, as well as the controller for three and more helicopters, which is based on a non linear controller, are explained in detail. Both controllers utilise an underlying non-linear orientation controller. We propose a feedback loop, based on forces measured in the ropes, to compensate for the influence of the rope. The controllers were tested in simulation and in real flight experiments. The world wide first flight experiment with three coupled helicopters was successfully conducted at the end of 2007.

The climate impacts of three fleets of supersonic small-scale transport aircraft (S4TA) are simulated. Based on characteristic aircraft parameters, which were developed within the EU-project HISAC, emissions along geographically representative trajectories are calculated and in addition the resulting changes in the atmospheric composition (carbon dioxide, ozone layer, water vapour) and climate (near surface global mean temperature) are deduced. We assume a fleet development with an entry in service in 2015, a full fleet in 2050. The results show a temperature increase of 0·08mK (0·07-0·10mK) with only small but statistically significant variations between the configurations, leading to a minimum climate impact for a weight optimised and hence lower flying aircraft. A climate impact ratio of 3·0 ± 0·4 between a S4TA and its subsonic counterpart is calculated, which is considerable less than for previous supersonic fleets because of a lower flight altitude, leading to smaller water vapour impacts.