Preliminary aerodynamic and static stability analysis for hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles at low speeds using digital DATCOM

Abstract

It is well-known that air transportation of passengers and goods is a large market in the world of aviation. Hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles have the potential to be candidates for such applications. This paper addresses the preliminary static stability analysis for hybrid buoyant aerial vehicles in which a novel concept of ballonet arrangement is applied. A study was performed to assess the suitability of commercial off-the-shelf software for this task. A generic geometric model was created to obtain the lift and drag characteristics of the aircraft and provide geometric parameters. These parameters were input into DATCOM, which was used to model the aerodynamic characteristics and to determine the stability and control derivatives for static analysis and airship performance enhancement. This study demonstrates that the aerodynamic and stability trends for low-speed airships can be obtained and analyzed using DATCOM.