Tradespace Exploration and Analysis Using Mission Effectiveness in Aircraft Conceptual Design

The success of aircraft development programs is based in requirements. Requirements are the starting point for the program and translate the key points of the operational need into what is eventually built. In many recent Air Force programs, significant cost and schedule challenges have been met. These challenges have compounded with operational requirements for improvement based on advancing and proliferating threats. The compounding issues drive a need to improve the development process. The need can be met in part by recent advancements in modeling approaches and computational frameworks. These advancements improve how operational effectiveness can be analyzed throughout design to inform the process. The work in this paper focuses on including operations analysis in the conceptual sizing and synthesis process. A modeling framework for design that can be used as a component of a decision support and requirements analysis environment is presented. The modeling framework is used in a test case of the basic conceptual design of a new tactical fighter. Results from the test case include an exploration of how changes to requirements impact the expected operational effectiveness. The critical requirements from the test case were identified and an example of a trade between critical variables was considered.