A study was conducted to identify possible improvements to the current certification and operational procedures for turboprop powered aircraft operating in icing conditions. Information was gathered through a series of interviews with airframe and engine manufacturers and also, operators and aircrews in Europe and Canada. The significant issues raised during the interviews are discussed, and a number of recommendations are made for future research and development activities in die area of aircraft icing. These recommendations identify the need for improved ice protection methods, enhanced thermodynamic models in ice prediction computer codes, and development of an ice prediction probe to warn aircrew that they will soon be entering icing conditions. Recommendations also include improvements to pilot training, and the need to make weather forecasts of icing more accurate and specific.

A simple but effective method is presented to analyse the effects of asymmetric external stores on flutter of an aircraft in this paper. The method is a kind of ‘direction derivative’ technique, and can be easily applied to predict whether the asymmetric external stores increase or decrease the flutter speed. By using the present technique the varying tendency of flutter speed can be determined preliminarily. This can be very useful and valuable to the designers at the beginning stage of flutter analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed method is proved analytically.

The classical criteria of the 1920s for the avoidance of flexure-torsion flutter were based on parameters such as stiffness ratio and the position across the typical chord of the aerodynamic, elastic and mass centres.

In more recent times, and in the context of aeroelastic tailoring of lifting surfaces constructed with composite materials, a new terminology has emerged — as evident from technical papers produced in the USA over the past decade. The prevention of flexure-torsion flutter, or the raising of the critical speed, is now achieved by providing more wash-in or less wash-out, where these terms do not have their established aeronautical meanings — and for this reason (and other, non-semantic ones) are to be deprecated.

By recourse to a typical section model (with quasi-steady and unsteady compressible aerodynamics), the writer argues that, for conventionally constructed wings, the new criteria are ‘fuzzy’ and incomplete versions of the earlier criteria in respect of the positioning of the various ‘centres’ (i.e., elastic, mass and aerodynamic) across the typical chord, and therefore that the new terminology is redundant in this context.

For laminated composite wing structures, even when the construction is uniform and the fiexural axis straight, it is established that the inclination of this axis with respect to the CG and aerodynamic axes may be so large that the fiexural and shear centres at the tip could be several chords forward or aft of the mid-chord axis; the criteria of the 1920s are then irrelevant. The wash-in/wash-out criteria may then be said to ‘come into their own’, albeit that it is shown herein that they remain fuzzy and incomplete — even for quasisteady binary problems. A crude modal binary model of a rudimentary laminated composite wing is included to illustrate this and other features. By recourse to a higher-order flutter formulation, the writer demonstrates that the wash-in/wash-out criteria are, in certain respects, unreliable.

A simple technique is proposed that allows the definition of the geometry and characteristics of an air-jet vortex generator to be defined, using the system requirements in practical design. Typically, the aircraft designer is concerned with the mass flow-rate and air pressure requirements of any pneumatic system for inclusion to an airframe. These parameters are not congruent with those for air-jet vortex generator aerodynamic design, and therefore, some tool is required to bridge the gap.

Such a tool is proposed, based on empirical methods for the prediction of air-jet vortex generator behaviour. The technique allows the comparison of the vortex strength, and the system inputs (the jet mass flow-rate and the air-jet plenum pressure) for the air-jet, for a range of jet nozzle diameters and jet velocity ratios. Through this comparison, the optimum air-jet design can be reached for a given system input.

This paper discusses how the inevitable limitations of computing power available to designers has restricted adoption of optimisation as an essential design tool. It is argued that this situation will continue until optimisation algorithms are developed which utilise the range of available analysis methods in a manner more like human designers. The concept of multi-level algorithms is introduced and a case made for their adoption as the way forward. The issues to be addressed in the development of multi-level algorithms are highlighted.

The paper goes on to discuss a system developed at Southampton University to act as a test bed for multi-level algorithms deployed on a realistic design task. The Southampton University multi-level wing design environment integrates drag estimation algorithms ranging from an empirical code to an Euler CFD code, covering a 150,000 fold difference in computational cost. A simple multi-level optimisation of a civil transport aircraft wing is presented.

Compounding offers a way of advancing the performance of the standard helicopter significantly for a moderate increase in complexity through the addition of wings and/or auxiliary propulsion. The compound helicopter configuration has the potential advantages of increased speed, range, agility, productivity and reduced vibration levels over conventional helicopters. Despite several significant efforts, however, no compound helicopter has ever been put into production. This paper looks at three aircraft that came close to being accepted by operators and examines the reasons why they were not ultimately put into production. The cancellation of these projects appeared to be of a political nature rather than technical. Also addressed are the issues that still face prospective designers of compound helicopters and the lessons that can be extracted and applied to modern day efforts to build and sell an aircraft of this configuration.