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 for two jet aircraft is of the best range ).
Optimization of the Range for Continuous Target Coverage
Journal of Aircraft ; 52 , 3 ; 896-902
2015-03-12
7 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Optimization of the Range for Continuous Target Coverage
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