Whats the best aircraft design software?

[BBerson]

The research paper that I found showed that the spoilers, undeflected, increased the attached air flow further back than not having them, increasing the CL value . Sorta like the leading edge cuffs.

I am not aware of any spoilers that increase lift. In general, almost all spoiler roll control was abandoned by experimenters. The exception is blade spoilers combined with short ailerons, like the Helio.

 

[TLAR]

One thing, Spoilerons kill lift.

 

[Andy_RR]

There is software on X-Plane that lets you design and simulate.

Please don't use X-Plane as a design tool - you'll shoot yourself in the foot. Use MS Excel (or open-source alternatives...) and learn the basics of flight modelling first. That way you'll have less chance of decieving yourself with your amazing ideas.

PS: Not at all saying X-Plane isn't useful! It's a super cool and handy tool for specific purposes - just not design.

 

[davidjgall]

Found this; https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-contours-of-steam-line-on-wing-with-new-spoiler-for-d0-and-AOA10_fig2_328847711

Whatever that thing is on top of the Clark Y-14 airfoil in that paper, I would not call it a "spoiler" and I would not trust the results of this completely theoretical paper to translate into the real world.

 

[Protech Racing]

It’s not the only one that ran top mounted airlerons. The early test showed that spoilers ha a lag for roll control, which makes sense in that of instead of vectoring air up and down for roll, you are destroying lift on one side and waiting for that side to drop.
The increase in lift was only at flat position and due to keeping the air attached further
It could work , may not
Thanks for the input.

 

[Vigilant1]

One thing about spoliers is that they provide roll control proportionate to the amount of lift you are asking from the wing. Lots of pulling on the stick=more roll for the same displacement. Pushover/bunt? Maybe no roll ability at all unless you get some Gs on the wing.

Overall, in general, GA aircraft have used ailerons for good reason.

 

[User27]

The only time spoilers might work for roll control is when there is a large amount of adverse yaw, a spoiler at the tip of the down going wing may provide some balancing effect. Open class sailplanes sometimes use this technique - but the tendency now is for shorter wings and slightly higher wing loadings.

 

[Protech Racing]

The best term for my parts are: top mounted aerlerons , not spoilers in the sense that these are not in the wing. They are mounted at the front 31%spar , with some air balance And deflect up only.

 

[Protech Racing]

I fully expect the plane to have 2.5 axis controls

 

[Tiger Tim]

The research paper that I found showed that the spoilers, undeflected, increased the attached air flow further back than not having them, increasing the CL value . Sorta like the leading edge cuffs.
The data did not show increased lift as deflection increased . Maybe they failed to try it or maybe it doesnt happen

I suspect the increase of lift is simply turbulation. A spanwise strip of thick tape in the right place would have a similar effect but like all things there’s a trade off.

I’ve never experienced a wing initially rising counter to spoileron input myself but I do find there’s a small dead zone in the middle of the control movement. I don’t think it’s caused by slop in the system, I suspect I’m actually using the spoilers to measure the depth of the boundary layer over the wing. I’ve never tried unloading the wing to check roll response because I don’t want to mess with fuel and oil supply to the engines so I can’t help you there. My gut feeling though is that roll spoilers are best on aircraft with high wing loadings and history shows that’s where they’ve been used the most. Ultralights with spoilerons all seem to either fall out of favour or evolve a set of ailerons instead. YMMV.

 

[Protech Racing]

Thanks.

 

[TFF]

Proverse yaw will be very awkward to deal with and hopefully it will not be so bad as to want to spin the plane. Stalling a section of the wing to turn does not seem a good way to go.

Spoilerons on big planes tend to deal with structure as well as adverse yaw. Engineers don’t want to have to deal with an 40 ft aileron; they would rather deal with a 20 ft aileron and a couple of 10 ft spoilers. Airliners are rated at a lower G than small airplanes. As strong as they seem airliners are fragile with all the weight they carry. Like the Airbus pilot ripping the rudder off by using it too much. The structure is much more fragile and lots of thought are made to make it all work. The most technical designs are ones where weight is super critical. Something like a Cub or a Cessna can be sloppy designed overweight a good bit. It’s going to fly ok and not fall apart. Not talking about perfection, sloppy can get it done. A 103 ultralight or an airliner where weight is paired down to almost no margin are where real thought comes in.

 

[joesab]

well I´m fairly new to Aircraft design softwares
but I´m a seasoned 3D artist in other non CAD 3D Software

• Catia as far as I know is used in the industry Paid
• OpenVSP Free open sourced by Nasa is good for physical layouts, CG, wetted area, CFD meshes (maybe), but you'll need VORLAX to produce any aero results. VORLAX (made in FORTRAN) is not freely distributed with OpenVSP, but it is available if you talk to the authors.
• Solidworks Paid
• xflr5 (highly recomend it) free and maybe open source??
• Mach up free online web app
• Mathlab
• Autocad Paid
• DACPEI free Open Source
• ANSYS fluent (for CFD)
• AVID APEX (Aerodynamic Prediction Express)
• Tornado - Vortex Lattice method used in MATLAB (it´s hard to use)
• AVL (AVL) is similar to XFLR5 minus the GUI.
• Digital DATCOM (Holy Cows, Inc. ) is pretty useful. You'll need to invest some time in learning details. It's basically an empirical database.
• Xfoil

Some homebuilders folks have mencioned RDS as good option too

some old school software of the DIY era

• ADS
• Airplane PDQ (super easy to use and fairly good results for the first prototyping) but developer seem to abandoned it If anyone has the latest version or 2009 version please be so kind to share at least the trial version

if anyone interested I have the 2004 version working fine

I think someone mention in the old times using x-plane (Simulator) with Airplane PDQ (design and CAD)
please be aware about
Andy_RR´s answer if you plan to pilot your designed plane do yourself a favor: don´t design with X-plane
for the sake of your safety

there are many options now days
Man I even saw someone online using Blender 3D for the first sketches of his plane

Lastly Goodold Pen, paper, math, brain, blood and swet

 

[mcrae0104]

Lastly Goodold Pen, paper, math, brain, blood and swet

Whatever you use, if it is somehow substituting for math, brains, blood, and sweat, it probably isn't doing you any favors.