AS5210-Aerodynamic Design

Report-1
First Weight Estimate
By Group-6

AE10B027-M.S Sooraj

AE10B028-S.Suhas

AE10B029-Syam Sundar V

AE10B030-Ch. Umesh Maharshi

AE10B031-J.Vegnesh

Date of Submission: 4th February,2013

1 Introduction
The design topic for the aerodynamic design project was chosen to be a long
range subsonic business jet capable of uninterrupted intercontinental ight.
The business jet is decided to be named as Phoenix Jet.
This report deals with the rst weight estimate of the business jet. The
mission specications and mission prole are also discussed. Similar aircrafts
are considered and analyzed in detail.

2 Business Jets
Business jets are miniature aircrafts when compare to large passenger jet
transport aircrafts, primarily used by corporate bodies to transport their
business executives, government organizations to transport head of a country/state, VIP's and public bodies to transport their ocials, organizations
providing air taxis/charters for on demand passengers. What business people wanted was not only to reach the destination earlier but less hassle, less
stress and less time in the airport. To heed to their needs, Aviation industries
like Lear, Lockheed, Bombardier and Gulfstream designed and manufactured
many business jets.
In the previous report,Phoenix Jet was classied as a passenger jet. Considering the unique features of Phoenix Jet ,namely, small passenger capacity
and long range requirements, it better ts the business jet category and hence
the literature used is largely drawn from certain specic business jets.

3 Literature Survey
The mission specications of Phoenix jet are :
Passengers : 9 (in executive arrangement)
Crew: 3 (One pilot, One co-pilot and one ight attendant)
Range: 12,000 km.(Non stop ight between USA and Asia)
The following business jets , obtained through extensive literature survey,
were found to have similar specications to that of Phoenix Jet

Table 3.1 Literature Survey

Aircraft

Crew

Passengers

Range(km)

Dassault Falcon 7X

14

11,019

Gulfstream G500

2-4

14-19

10,700

Gulfstream G550

2-4

12,501

Bombardier Global 5000

2-3

9,360

Bombardier Global Express

2-4

8-19

11,390

Gulfstream G650

11-18

12,964

Bombardier Global 8000

19

14,630

Figure 4.1: Mission Prole Sketch for Phoenix Jet

4 Mission Prole
The mission prole sketch as shown in Fig 4.1 is a basic outline of typical
mission prole for the Phoenix Jet.
After engine start-up, taxi, and take-o the Phoenix Jet climbs to cruise
altitude and accelerates to cruise speed. On reaching the destination airspace,
the Phoenix may have to loiter around the area until it gets the clearance
for landing.

In certain situations,the jet after descending to a particular

altitude, may have to alternate, owing to its excess fuel weight or due to
abrupt changes in local conditions(fog/gust). Finally, the jet descents to the
runway level and executes landing. The above paragraph thus sums up the
mission prole of Phoenix Jet.

5 First Weight Estimate

The following section determines the rst weight estimate of Phoenix Jet.
The method and equations used to determine the rst weight estimate were
taken from Chapter 3 of Raymer's Aircraft Design- A Conceptual Approach.This
section has been divided into two parts that describe:Weights of similar airplanes and calculations performed to determine the rst weight estimate.

5.1 Weights of Similar Airplanes

The rst step in estimating the weight of Phoenix Jet involves the determination of the weight values of similar aircrafts.Values for the maximum take-o
weight (W0 ),fuel weight(WF ) and empty weight(WE ) were found for similar
aircrafts.
The denition of the above mentioned terms are as follows:
1. Maximum Take-O Weight (W0 ): The maximum weight at which the
aircraft is allowed to attempt to take-o,due to structural or other
limitations.

It is the heaviest weight at which the aircraft has been

shown to meet all the airworthiness requirements applicable to it.

2. Fuel Weight (WF ): It represents the weight of the maximum fuel that
the aircraft can carry.
3. Empty Weight (WE ): Empty weight includes the airframe,engine,xed
equipment,unusuable fuel,full oil and other items necessary for all ights.

Table 5.1: Weights of Similar Aircraft

Aircraft

W0 (in kg)

WF (in kg)

WE (in kg)

Dassault Falcon 7X

31,752

14,487

15,456

Gulfstream G500

38,600

16,000

21,800

Gulfstream G550

41,277

18,733

21,900

Bombardier Global 5000

42,071

16,329

24,000

Bombardier Global Express

44,500

20,400

22,600

Gulfstream G650

45,178

20,048

22,328

Bombardier Global 8000

47,536

22,203

22,385

Table 5.1 shows the dierent weights of the aircrafts that are similar to
Phoenix Jet in size and mission prole.

5.2 Determination of take-o weight

Design take-o gross weight is the sum of crew weight,payload(or passenger)
weight,fuel weight and the empty weight.

W0 = WCrew + WP ayload + WF + WE

(5.2.1)

The crew and the payload weights are determined from the design specications as follows.
The average passenger weight was obtained from Civil Aviation Safety
Authority(CASF) report and is estimated to be 86 Kgs for adult males,70
Kgs for adult females and 43 Kgs for children in the 4-12 years age bracket.
The average baggage weight for each passenger as obtained from the FAA
recommendations was found to be 60 Kgs(2 baggages).
Assuming a worst case scenario where every passenger is a male adult,
the total payload weight for a 9 passenger aircraft is :
Total payload weight(WPayload ) = 9*(86+60)=1314 Kgs.
The average weight of a crew member obtained from CASF report was
82 Kgs.
Total crew weight (3 member crew)(WCrew )= 3*(82+60)=426 Kgs.
The fuel weight and empty weight are unknowns.However, they are both

Table 5.2: Weight Ratios of Similar Aircrafts

WE
WF
Aircraft
W0
W0
Dassault Falcon 7X

0.486

0.456

Gulfstream G500

0.564

0.414

Gulfstream G550

0.530

0.453

Bombardier Global 5000

0.570

0.388

Bombardier Global Express

0.507

0.458

Gulfstream G650

0.494

0.443

Bombardier Global 8000

0.470

0.467

Figure 5.1: Plot of ( WWE0 vs W0 )

dependent on the design take-o weight(W0 ).Equation (5.2.1) can be rearranged as :

F
E
W0 = WCrew + WP ayload + ( W
)W0 + ( W
)W0
W0
W0

WE
WF
and
W0
W0
and is shown in Table 5.2

The data for

(5.2.2)

of similar aircrafts is obtained from Table 5.1

Using the data from Table 5.2, graphs of (

W
WE
vs W0 )and ( F vs W0 ) are
W0
W0

plotted as shown in Fig 5.1 and Fig 5.2

In the above mentioned graphs, curve t method was used to obtain a
linear curve .
The equations of the straight line in (

WE
W0

= 1.267 106 W0 + 0.5706

WE
vs W0 ) plot is found to be :
W0

(5.2.3)

Figure 5.2: Plot of ( WWF0 vs W0 )

The equations of the straight line in (

WF
W0

= 7.078 107 W0 + 0.4109

WF
vs W0 ) plot is found to be :
W0

(5.2.4)

For obtaining the design take-o weight, an iterative process is used.

Equation (3.2.2) can be rearranged as:

Wo(new) =

WCrew +WP ayload

W

1 WF WE
0

(5.2.5)

WE
Now an initial guess of the take-o weight is made. The values of
W0
WF
for the guessed value of W0 is obtained from equations (5.2.3) and
and
W0
(5.2.4) respectively. These values are substituted in equation (5.2.5) to obtain
W0(new) .In the next iterative step, the W0(new) value obtained in the earlier
step is used as the new guess W0 .This iterative process is continued until the
following condition is satised:

W0(new) W0
W0(new)

< 1%

(5.2.6)

The above mentioned iterative process was executed in MATLAB

TM

for an

initial guess W0 =30,000 Kgs.The nal design take-o weight after iterations
was found to be:

W0 =41,588 Kgs.Substituting this W0 value in equation

(5.2.3) and (5.2.4) gave WE =21,538 Kgs and WF =18,312 Kgs.

6 Conclusion
The mission specications and mission prole of Phoenix Jet were successfully dened.Using historical data of similar aircrafts and basic empirical
weight equations, the rst weight estimate of Phoenix Jet was performed
and the following results were obtained.

Design Take-O Weight (W0 )= 41,588 Kgs.

Fuel Weight(WF )= 18,312 Kgs.
Empty Weight (WE )=21,538 Kgs

References
[1] Janes All World's Aircraft
[2] www.lyx.org
[3] www.planes.ndthebest.com
[4] Raymer-Aircraft Design -A Conceptual Approach
[5] Aircraft Design Projects for Engineering Students-Jenkinson & Marchman
[6] Civil Aviation Safety Authority-CAA Publications
[7] Bombardier, Gulfstream, Dassault websites
[8] www.wikipedia.org