The increasing demand for intelligence and surveillance missions has led to the novel use of aircraft (especially unmanned aerial vehicles). Rather than flying long distances or loitering, a fleet of aircraft will maintain a permanent presence at a remote location. Two questions arise: at what distance can this presence be maintained, and at what aerodynamic efficiency shall the aircraft fly during the transits? The Breguet equations for range and endurance provide a preliminary formula for the "range for continuous coverage", in which the aerodynamic coefficients for both transit phases appear. The optimization of these coefficients provides remarkable results: for a given propulsion type and number of aircraft, the lift coefficient for the optimal range for continuous coverage is always a constant multiple of the lift coefficient for the best range (e.g., the best continuous coverage CL for two jet aircraft is 1/3 of the best range CL).
Optimization of the Range for Continuous Target Coverage
Journal of aircraft ; 52 , 3
2015
Aufsatz (Zeitschrift)
Englisch
Optimization of the Range for Continuous Target Coverage
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