Aircraft Design and Development Individual Research Project
The summative and final assignment for this course is a research paper and presentation focusing on an aircraft system design. The paper should provide a critical analysis of the design process and design of your chosen system.
In short, all military, commercial, and general aviation aircraft are potential candidates.
Research Project should follow the template exactly and include:
1. Background, context, perspective, history, enabling technological advances, and so forth
2. Design goals and top level requirements
3. Cost, materials, technical, and environmental constraints
4. Trades made to achieve the selected optimum
5. Final design effectiveness evaluation, strengths, and weaknesses
6. Lessons learned applicable to today
7. Your recommendations
Page and formatting requirements include the following:
· 15 pages of solid content (figures do not count in page count and are encouraged if appropriately referenced)
· 1 title page (standard APA title page format with your title, your name, date, course name, and your location)
· 1 abstract page
· 1-2 pages of references
· APA Format (Times New Roman, 12 pt, double spaced, 1 in margins)
The Template for the Research Paper is as follows:
1.0 Title Page
2.0 Abstract
2.1. Introduction/background/context/perspective
2.2. Research question
2.3. Hypothesis
2.4. Recommendation
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Background
3.2 History, perspective, context, enabling technological advances, and so forth.
4.0 Research Question and Hypothesis
5.0 Research Approach and Plan
6.0 Literature Review
7.0 Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation
7.1 Design goals and Top Level Requirements
7.2 Cost, Materials, Technical, and Environmental Constraints
7.3 Trades Made To Achieve Optimum Design
7.4 Final Design Effectiveness Evaluation – Strengths and Weaknesses
7.5 Lessons Learn Applicable To Today’s System Design
8.0 Summary and Conclusions
9.0 Recommendations
10.0 References
11.0 Bibliography (optional – general references of potential interest to the reader that are not listed on the reference page)
12.0 Appendices (optional – may contain additional figures, derivations, pictures, and so forth that while relevant to the topic are not useful in the flow of the main content)
Please use the template EXACTLY as provided here as you create and submit research outlines and for all other phases of your research paper development.
Prerequisite: You must have instructor’s approval for your topic and your research summary plan before moving forward to populate this template with your content.
To help in the completion of the Research Paper intermediate deliverables are scheduled. This will help you pace yourself in the completion of your paper, as well as give you opportunity to receive feedback to help you enhance your final submission.
Page 2 of 5
Individual Research Project
Module 2 – Research Summary Plan
Create a Research Summary Plan using the provided template. Include in your Research Summary Plan:
1. Your research question and hypothesis. Provide your primary and supporting questions with here your answer(s) to these questions. The answer may be a theory you intend to prove.
2. About six initial references for your literature search following the APA format for reference listings.
3. Also include your Research Approach and Plan section. This section should include:
· How are you going to proceed to obtain your research findings?
· What analysis tools are you planning to use? Even a simple average may serve as an analysis tool; however the department encourages the correct use of sophisticated statistical tools.
Module 3 – Introduction
The introduction should provide the reader with the background, history, context, and perspective as appropriate to quickly orient him to when and where you are starting with your research. This should be relatively concise yet provide the reader an adequate conceptual framework. It should eliminate any ambiguities and provide why this is important.
Module 4 – Literature Survey
In Module 1, you started your literature search for sources directly relevant to your topic and your research question and hypothesis. While it is not necessary to include all sources, you should capture a dozen or more key or most important sources in the literature review section. These should be summarized in this section and should give the reader an unambiguous understanding of where research stands in your specific topic area. This is your primary data base. You will build on this foundation in later sections.
Module 5 – Analysis, Synthesis, and Interpretation
This is where we take the book report and your original work to further build on your literature survey, your database, follow the template in this section and provide content on design goals and top-level requirements. Once goals are established, top-level requirements usually emerge fairly straightforwardly. Constraints must also be considered and this is where complexity usually starts entering in to a design. These constraints include, per the template, cost, materials, technologies, and environment at the system, sub-system, and component levels. Once the designer reaches this point, higher-level requirements are derived from the top level and trades start being made to achieve optimum design. Due to constraints, compromises or “trades” will always be necessary in the design to achieve the best practical or optimum design. Sometimes the project authority must relax a requirement in order for an optimum to be achieved within a given cost. The final optimum selection results in aircraft that may achieve varying levels of effectiveness. For example, the F4 could be argued to be an outstanding design as opposed to some other aircraft that did not stay in the inventory for as long. Final effectiveness of a design depends on many factors. Too often, problems occur because basic lesson-learned principles are ignored somewhere up the project leadership chain. With all aircraft system designs, there are fundamental lessons that may be learned both pro and con to apply to the design and development of future systems.
Module 6 – Summary and Conclusions
In this section, you summarize your research findings and provide your conclusions formed from your analysis, synthesis and interpretation of your literature survey, your database. One important aspect of this will be fundamental lessons learned.
Module 7 – Recommendations
Building upon your summary and conclusions, formulate and provide your now educated opinion of what could or could have been done better in the design and development of your selected system. Be sure that your recommendations are made so as to be applicable to future systems.
Module 8 – Abstract and References
Final abstracts should be 3 or 4 concise paragraphs held to 3/4 page in length.
1. Introduction/background/context/perspective: Provide these four elements as appropriate. Answer the questions, ‘What is happening and why this is important?’
2. Research question: You may actually have one primary question with a few sub-questions in your paper. Just use the primary one here. The answer given in the next paragraph to this question will add something of yours that is original, even if it is small, to the body of knowledge in the area. For example, ‘Was the decision to cancel production of the F-22 the correct choice?’
3. Hypothesis: This is your overall answer to the primary question that you have supported with your research.
4. Recommendation: This is your educated opinion based on your research findings and may evolve as the final draft unfolds. While you may have many recommendations, just use your primary one here.
Also include your list of References for your research paper. This list should follow the APA rules for a reference list. The reference list should contain anything you paraphrase, quote, take from the internet, or any figure of table you use from another source. If you have any doubt whether to reference, go ahead and reference it even if it may be fragmentary.
Module 9 – Final Paper
Compile and assemble all the sections you have submitted into a final draft. Be sure to incorporate all feedback from your instructor and your classmates from your intermediate deliverables submitted in the discussion forums.
