Aircraft Design Tool

After college I wanted to get back into aircraft design. For the first year I was able to use tools I created at WPI with MATLAB. However, after a year, my MATLAB subscription expired. I needed an alternative! So: I started to use Python. I found Python to be a quick, light weight, and flexible tool to suit my needs. For this project I needed a tool to do several calculations:

Max L/D speed
Calculate Time of Flight based off battery parameters
Determine the Static Stability Margin
Intermediate and tedious calculations

First Iteration: Script Only

For the first iteration of the Aircraft Design Tool I converted my MATLAB code from senior year at WPI to a python script. I used two different scripts for the tool. One script had the user input values and called functions to be ran. The second script was where all the definitions for the function calls were described. I had to learn how to pass variables not stored in the same workspace. I also had to learn NumPi.

Second Iteration: GUI

Based off the first iteration, I created a GUI using the TKinter package. This allowed me to create a user interface, accept user input, allow only a specific function to be called, and give the user outputs in the same window. I also made it so a user can input default values in the script to save time when varying only one parameter. Another useful tool was deleting all the generated plots at once.

L/D Ratio Plot

To compare how varying the cord effected the velocity of the max L/D velocity

Thrust Needed Plot

To find the thrust needed at the max L/D velocity

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Aircraft Design Tool

First Iteration: Script Only

Second Iteration: GUI

L/D Ratio Plot

Thrust Needed Plot

Get in touch at jason.karlin@outlook.com