AAE 451, SENIOR DESIGN

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS REVIEW

TEAM 3: GOLDJET

DIANE BARNEY

DONALD BARRETT

MICHAEL COFFEY

JON COUGHLIN

MARK GLOVER

KEVIN LINCOLN

ANDREW MIZENER

JARED SCHEID

ERIC SMITH

Team GoldJet System Requirements Review

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Table of Contents

I. Mission Statement 2

II. Outline of NASA Competition 2

III. Key Assumptions 2

IV. Quality Function Deployment 3

V. Market Research 6

VI. Competitors 11

VII. City Pairs and Key Routes 12

VIII. Design Mission 16

IX. Economic Mission 19

X. Aircraft Sizing 20

XI. Summary and Next Steps 24

XII. References 27

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I. Mission Statement

To design a profitable supersonic aircraft capable of Trans-Pacific travel to meet the needs of

airlines and their passengers around the world.

II. Outline of NASA Competition

The NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorates (ARMD) 2008-2009 University

Competition calls for the design of an N+2 generation supersonic aircraft which would have initial

operational capability (IOC) in 2020. More specific goals for the aircraft as outlined by the

competition guidelines include:

Cruise speed of Mach 1.6 to 1.8

Design Range of 4000 nautical miles

Payload of 35-70 passengers, mixed class

Fuel Efficiency of 3 passenger-miles per pound of fuel

Takeoff field length < 10,000 feet for airport compatibility

Supersonic cruise efficiency

Low sonic boom (

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Changes to these regulations must come in the form of a complete repeal, or a

modification to allow certain supersonic corridors for flight over areas of low population

density. According to a statement released by Carl Burleson, Director of Environment

and Energy on October 16, 2008, it is anticipated that future regulations would propose

any future supersonic airplane produce no greater noise impact on a community than a

subsonic airplane.[1]

A design with a sonic boom overpressure less than 0.3 lb/ft2 is a

target of GoldJet in order to meet these new anticipated regulations.

2. A number of Supersonic Business Jet (SSBJ) concepts are currently in design and study

phases of development. A change in supersonic flight regulations would pave the way for

the success of SSBJs over the next 10-15 years, fueling technological innovation. Our

aircraft will depend on this field of research for products like more efficient supersonic

engines, and possibly composite materials with better temperature resistance.

IV. Quality Function Deployment

The first task in our design process was customer identification. We have defined our customers

as anyone affected by the operation of our aircraft. Our primary customers are airlines and

passengers. Other customers include the general public, maintenance workers, pilots and crew, and

leasing companies (like ILFC). We then identified specific needs for each set of customers,

combined them, and allocated a total of 100 points to the group to assign each a relative worth. Each

need was assigned a portion of this 100 points and the final ranking of our customer needs can be

seen in the table below.

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Customer Needs Relative Worth

Profitable Operations 22

Reduced Trip Time 11.88

Long Range 11.38

Marketable 9.375

Functions at Current

Airports

6.5

Passenger Comfort 6.875

Many Trips per Day 6.625

Affordable Purchase Cost 5.25

Quiet 4.75

Low Emissions 4.625

Easy to Maintain 3.75

Easy to Manufacture 3.125

Easy to Fly 2.25

Can Carry Cargo 1.625

Table 1: Customer Needs and Relative Worth

Our most important customers are airlines, and we feel that profitable operation of our aircraft

will be the main factor in their purchasing decision. This is reflected in profitable operations

receiving the highest relative worth of all our customer needs. The main purpose of supersonic flight

is to reduce trip time. The time savings of supersonic flight increase with the percentage of flight at

cruise speed. This means that the trip time is reduced by a larger percentage for longer trips than for

shorter trips. With this in mind, the two needs receiving the next highest relative worth are low trip

time and long range. The last need that stands out with a high relative worth has been labeled

marketable. We have recognized that our aircraft will be the first commercial supersonic airliner

since the Concorde and will be considered the cutting edge of aviation. We anticipate airlines using

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our aircraft as a marketing tool to change their image, and the high relative worth of this customer

need shows we will pay special attention to aesthetics throughout our design phase.

We next developed a list of technical engineering characteristics and requirements that will

govern the performance of our airplane. We were interested in finding the correlation between our

engineering requirements and our customer needs, so with the combination of the two we built a

house of quality and set out to rank the technical requirements in order of importance. The House of

Quality (HoQ) views the customer needs as a list of Whats to be satisfied. The engineering

requirements are viewed as a list of solutions (Hows) to the Whats. Positive correlations between

needs and requirements are noted and the requirements can then be ranked in order of importance to

satisfying the customer needs. The HoQ is given in Figure 1.

Figure 1: House of Quality

After completing the HoQ exercise, the absolute and relative importance of each engineering

attribute (How) as it related to the customer needs was determined. The rankings of our requirements

(in absolute importance) can be seen in Figure 2.

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Figure 2: Relative Importance of Engineering Characteristics

Our HoQ revealed the three most important engineering characteristics to be cruise speed, block

time, and cruise efficiency. Cruise efficiency has a strong correlation with the profitable operation

customer need while cruise speed and block time both have strong influence on reduced trip time.

Cruise speed also shows a strong correlation with marketability, our fourth highest ranked customer

need.

V. Market Research

In order to predict the profitability of our aircraft, it is important to consider what size of a

market such a supersonic transport jet will reach. Our supersonic aircraft will have a higher

operating cost than a similar sized subsonic transport jet. A higher operating cost will translate into

higher ticket prices. We have acknowledged that as a commercial airliner this jet will appeal

primarily to the wealthier section of the market. It then seems reasonable to expect that our primary

market will likely consist mostly of those passengers currently willing to pay first class ticket prices

on subsonic carriers.

Based on data collected from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics DB1B database for

domestic United States flights, and using a first class ticket fare of $1 per mile flown, it was

Relative Importance of Engineering Characteristics

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Team GoldJet System Requirements Review

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determined that approximately 2% of airline travelers within the United States currently pay first

class fares.[2]

While this number includes only US domestic flights, we have assumed that a similar

percentage of customers pay first class fares for international flights. Assuming that this percentage

will project to the market at the release of our aircraft, 2% of travelers will be willing to pay the

higher ticket prices required of a supersonic transport jet.

We also feel that the introduction of our supersonic transport jet will attract a significant amount

of business from those who do not currently p