Comparison between Civil and Military Aircraft Design Requirements

This section compares the civil and military aircraft design classes, as shown in Table 2.2.

Once the configuration is finalized, the governing equations for sizing, engine matching, and performance analysis are the same for all categories (although drag estimation presents some difficulty for complex configurations, especially supersonic designs). The crux of a military aircraft design is systems integration for survivabil­ity, maneuver control (i. e., FBW), target acquisition, weapons management, navi­gation (i. e., unknown terrain), and communication strategies (e. g., identification of friend or foe). Military aircraft design is very different compared to civil aircraft design. A major aspect of combat aircraft design is the systems architecture for threat analysis and survivability – without these in the combat aircraft design of the Eurofighter Typhoon or the F22 Raptor class, any coursework exercise is meaning­less. Military certification standards are more elaborate and time consuming. These crucial issues are not within the scope of this book – only a few specialist books are available that address systems architecture for threat analysis and survivability – and

some of those are obviously confidential. However, seminars on these topics are offered to those who are well versed in aircraft design.

The simpler case of an AJT in subsonic operation provides an idea of military aircraft design, although the author would not apply the certification regulations as extensively as in the civil aircraft examples for reasons discussed previously. It is possible that the CAS version of the AJT could become supersonic in a shallow dive.