A decision-based approach for developing ranged top-level aircraft specifications: A conceptual exposition

Our aim in this paper is to illustrate a way for developing top-level specifications for use in an aircraft acquisition process. Given a set of requirements, the task is to recommend ranged aircraft characteristics, that is, a top-level specification, suitable for inclusion in a solicitation package. The nature of the solicitation project is to attract tenders for a design and build contract for a subsonic jet transport. By proposing a real world design problem (involving a Boeing 727-200 type aircraft) and tracing its hypothetical resolution process, the integrated total approach to modeling and exploring an complex aircraft system in the early stages of decision-based design is illustrated. Our study reflects a paradigm shift from a traditional and essentially sequential approach towards a holistic and concurrent systems approach for determining ranged top-level specifications for new aircraft. This represents a departure from a process that develops singular point designs towards a process that facilitates rapid prototyping and concept exploration. Foundational is the philosophy that an appropriate modern approach to designing is one that is based on systems thinking, uses computers as partners in the process of design and includes concurrent engineering design for the life cycle. In this paper, we are concerned with the process of using a multi-disciplinary simulation model to determine ranged top-level specifications of a subsonic jet transport rather than the results per se.