Aerial refueling is a critical element of Navy operations, made difficult by the inherent aerodynamic interference between the tanker and receiver aircraft. Current flight simulation capabilities are unable to accurately reproduce the complex wake interference effects on the receiver aircraft, solely accounting for the inviscid vortex. This research develops an aerodynamic interference module that may be incorporated into the simulation environment to account for incremental changes in the forces and moments on the receiver aircraft as it approaches the tanker during typical refueling scenarios. The interference module is based on low-order response surface models derived from a database of high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics predictions. The low-order model encompasses all of the complex wake effects on the receiver aerodynamic coefficients and may be quickly interrogated for use in real-time flight simulation. Predicted aerodynamic coefficient increments are validated against flight data for an E-2D receiver trailing behind a KC-135 tanker.
Low-Order Response Surface Model for Simulating Wake Interference in Aerial Refueling
Journal of Aircraft ; 56 , 5 ; 1783-1793
2019-09-01
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Wake vortex effect modeling and simulation in automated aerial refueling
British Library Online Contents | 2010
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