Vindöga 2012 : A concept study of an environmentally friendly airplane.

Abstract:   Summary In case of accidents, for example radiation leakage from power plants or natural disasters such as oil leakages from tankers into the ocean, the success of a rescue mission is dependent of accurate information from the site at an early stage.To be able to go in at close range without risking the health of a pilot and a crew; a UAV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, can be used. In this project, a concept study of such a plane that was light built and easy to transport was made. The study was made using the softwares Solid Edge, to design the aircraft, and Matlab, to evaluate the models used to describe the plane’s performance during flight. Some aspects, such as cost, strength and durability were neglected. The plane was equipped with an electric engine, to make it environmentally friendly. A winch start procedure was studied and showed to spare a lot of energy, which could be used to increase the aircrafts range. The mass of the plane was set to kg, kg of batteries included, and the span to m. The service level was set to m giving a range of km if using the winch for the take-off or km if using the engine. The cruise speed was m/s, which was the speed requiring minimum energy per distance, and the corresponding power requirement was kW.