The proposed effort directly responds to NASA's SBIR solicitation goal of developing validated physics-based multidisciplinary computational tools applicable for the design, analysis and optimization of rotorcraft. The proposed technology also directly responds to NASA's Subsonic Rotary Wing Program objective to radically improve the capabilities and civilian benefits of rotary-wing vehicles. The research would directly support NASA's work evaluating and developing the LCTR concept for increasing airport capacity, as well as identifying appropriate air traffic patterns for simultaneous non-interfering operations of general combinations of fixed wing and rotary-wing aircraft. NASA could use the technology in the design and evaluation of new operational procedures, providing a means for assessing pilot workload during terminal area operations where wake interactions may occur. Finally, the ability to model multiple aircraft wake interactions will be installed into NASA's Vertical Motion Simulator providing an invaluable new capability for all future NASA research in that facility.
The proposed tool will be of great use to the FAA and U.S. airports as well as NASA, as new air traffic patterns and operation procedures are evaluated in terms of safety and increased capacity upon the introduction of large civil tiltrotors into the National Airspace System (NAS). Coupling of a real-time version of the analysis into the Air Traffic Management (ATM) system could lead to improved predictions and display of wake hazard conditions. The tool would also be useful to aircraft manufacturers in assessing the wake hazard issues associated with future rotary-wing aircraft concepts. The tool would be helpful to contractors designing upgraded wake safety crew advisory systems. The research effort would also apply directly to U.S. Navy concerns over wake hazard issues related to V-22 aircraft formation flight and operations in the vicinity of personnel and other aircraft both near the ground and at sea.
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