User:Gtaero

Objective
The traditional sizing and synthesis method provides a quick “back of the envelope” calculation of aircraft characteristics, but requires the user to make educated assumptions regarding the drag polar, engine performance, and empty weight of the aircraft. This project will define an existing airplane, the Dassault Mirage 2000C, using mission analysis code to then reverse engineer the design starting from the performance and design missions.

Introduction
Companies often to not make all the information about their aircraft available. Starting from known performances and design missions, the Mirage was reverse engineered starting from these known parameters, sizing the aircraft be keeping the known parameters constant. For example, the takeoff field length, wing planform, weight and thrust of an aircraft may be known, and the objective is to find its maximum lift coefficient.

A key portion of the reverse engineering process is finding as much dependable data as possible. After finding all publicly available data about the aircraft, it can be sized for its design mission to find missing parameters. The more information that is known, the better will the predictions of missing parameters be.

The project utilized an established legacy mission analysis code, namely FLOPS, for the sizing and synthesis of aircraft along with other disciplinary analysis tools such as VSP, VORLAX, BDAP, AWAVE, and NPSS used for geometry, lift, skin friction drag, wave drag, and engine performance analysis, respectively. The codes were linked together using ModelCenter software.

Dassault Aviation

 * Primary French Office
 * 9, Rond-Point des Champs-Elysées, Marcel-Dassault
 * 75008 Paris, France
 * Phone: +33-1-53-76-93-00
 * Fax: +33-1-53-76-93-20


 * Primary US Office
 * 200 Riser Rd.
 * Little Ferry, NJ 07643
 * Phone: 201-440-6700
 * Fax: 201-541-4401

France's Dassault Aviation builds military aircraft such as the Mirage and Rafale as well as the Falcon line luxury business jets. The founding Dassault family owns just over half of the company, while EADS owns about 46%.

Purpose and Mission
The Mirage 2000 family of aircraft were initially designed as a multi-role combat aircraft capable of air and ground attack (2000C) for the French Air Force. A two-seat training version (2000B) was deployed with the 2000C and later an advanced trainer version (2000AT) was promoted and then dropped by Dassault. A design to fulfill a nuclear, low altitude penetration mission (2000N) was also created for the French Air Force along with a conventional attack 2 seat version of the same aircraft (2000D). Second generation (2000-5) and third generation (2000-5 Mk2) designs were developed to fulfill an "air superiority" role.

Aircraft Evolutionary History
The Mirage 2000C was designed as a supersonic, multirole fighter initially for the French Air Force as a combat aircraft. Later versions were designed with other missions in mind and eventually an export version was released. The official go ahead for the Mirage 2000C was given in December of 1975 with the first flight in March of 19781. The first flight of a production aircraft occurred in November of 1982. The design went through several evolutionary changes and is still flown to this day.

Versions


Mirage 2000B/C Mirage 2000N Mirage 2000D Mirage 2000-5 Mirage 2000-9
 * Official go-ahead		18 Dec 1975
 * First flight			10 Mar 1978
 * First Flight (production)		20 Nov 1982
 * Entered service 			2 Jun 1984
 * The Mirage 2000B is the two seat counterpart of the 2000C. It is a two seat, multi-role, supersonic standard interceptor for the French Air Force.
 * First flight			3 Feb 1983
 * First Flight (production)		3 Mar 1983
 * First Delivery			30 Mar 1988
 * Entered service 			1 Jun 1988
 * Dassaultdesigned this version to fulfill nuclear missions. This version answered the need by the French Air Force for very low altitude penetration. This is a twin seat configuration with terrain-following radar.
 * First flight			19 Feb 1991
 * First Delivery			9 Apr 1993
 * Entered service 			29 Jul 1993
 * Two seat conventional attack version of the 2000N.
 * First flight			24 Oct 1990
 * First Flight (production)		Oct 1995
 * First Delivery (Taiwan)		May 1997
 * Initially a second generation fighter, this version of the Mirage family incorporates new technologies and functionalities derived from experience gained on the Rafale program and the Mirage 2000-3 private venture program. Dassaultasserts that this is a newer generation aircraft ideally suited to high altitude interception and air superiority operations. It was initially exported in 1997 and by the end of 2004 was operated by 8 air forces worldwide and had accumulated 1.2 million flying hours.1 The third generation Mirage 2000-5 Mk2 first flew in December of 2000 with deliveries beginning in April 2003.
 * First flight			14 Dec 2000
 * First Delivery (Abu Dhabi)	14 Apr 2003
 * The Dash 9 is the latest version of the Mirage 2000 family. It is billed as an “advanced multi-role combat aircraft.” It is a version of the Dash 5 for the United Arab Emirates incorporating long range air-to-ground capability.

Project Resources
Disclaimer ''Many, if not all, of the software components used for this project have restricted access. Georgia Tech ASDL students were given access to these pieces of software for the purpose of this academic assignment.''

FLOPS - FLight OPtimization System, which was developed by NASA and later revised and modified by Georgia Tech's ASDL. The nature of the agreement between NASA and ASDL prohibits the release of the FLOPS executable file to individuals not covered by the agreement.

Vehicle Sketch Pad - VSP, version 1.1 is a parametric geometry modeling tool. This tool is used to translate simple geometry parameters into a detailed geometric mesh used by the aerodynamic analyses. This tool may also be used to create a three view drawing of your vehicle.

VORLAX - Uses the vortex lattice method to predict lift.

BDAP - Boeing Design and Analysis Program, provides skin friction drag prediction.

AWAVE - Provides a prediction of supersonic wave drag.

NPSS - Numerical Propulsion System Simulation, provides engine performance estimation. NPSS allows a user to specify engine architecture, design variables for each component, and an operating condition. The NPSS solver is then capable of simulating the off-design performance of the engine at that condition by numerically solving the cycle matching equations.

ModelCenter - graphical environment for process integration and design automation. It allows you to quickly “wrap” and link analysis tools to create a modeling and simulation environment. It also allows you to perform optimization, design of experiments, and Monte Carlo simulation on your environment.