question about best software

[Gerald Sam]

anyone know about what the best software for drawing aircraft design? and that software can for test flight?

[steveinindy]

No software will replace a firm understanding of design and everything that goes along with it. Judging by your posts on here, you are years from having that level of knowledge assuming that you could achieve it at all. You come across as being someone who either has English as a second language or a moderate learning disability.

[WLIU]

I will suggest that denigrating a poster who is attempting to climb the learning curve, from whatever low level, is far from the EAA's values. We all start somewhere and none of us knows it all.

To the original poster's question - A place to start is any of the low cost computer aided design (CAD) programs that can be purchased on the internet. Autodesk makes a number of programs that are used by amateurs and professionals. You can start sketching parts with Autosketch. All of the programs require that you spend several hours learning how they work and how you can create a technical drawing that you can show to other folks. Google the topic of technical drawing standards to see what the standard symbols for dimensions and other details are.

To see how larger subassemblies fit together, Google Sketchup is a free 3D drawing tool. I use it effectively to produce subassembly drawings for FAA 337 application packages.

I have not used it, but I understand that the X-Plane program will allow you to input the numbers for the flight characteristics of a proposed aircraft and see how it might fly.

If other folks would like to describe their experiences with low cost CAD tools, we might all benefit from this thread going forward.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[NTAD]

X-Plane and Winfoil and other low cost flight software will give you an estimate of how the plane will perform aerodynamically. But they are only estimates and they won't give you any feel for how stable the plane is or how much control authority you'll have or what the useful load will be, etc. There does exist software that will do those things, but we're talking about Solidworks-floworks or Catia, both programs that will cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

In a way, Steveinindy was right in the sense that you should take some courses in mechanical design and fluid mechanics and aerodynamics in order to have a foundation of knowledge from which you can start making decisions on aspect ratio and fuselage cross sections and the like.

If you don't have the time or the money for the courses, buy some textbooks instead and teach yourself. In fact there's even a free, online textbook from Stanford at this URL:
http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/AircraftDesign.html

In any case. Good luck and don't give up.
I hope to see some designs from you soon.

[Kurt Flunkn]

DAR corporation / Jan Roskam has a lot of books and software available. I used his 8 volume book set back in the early 90's when I was in aeronautical engineering school:

http://www.darcorp.com

[tdm]

Solidworks for structural, NASA's CFL3D for CFL if you can book time on a computer cluster. Will need postprocessing software for CFL visualization and grid generation software . If sim is M > 5, may need CMHD software. Won't replace wind tunnel.

[chacalextreme]

First at all, I'm like you, finding out how to build my own aircraft. And also my english can look weird, since I'm from Costa Rica and the only way for me to say the things right is in spanish. So don't give up, I asked the same questions time ago and I found out that the best software for that is CATIA V5 R18. Several aeronautics companies use it, and it is more or less simple to use. Also try to find ANSYS to do some structural analysis. Yes they are expensive to buy, but you know that they are out there in some server :O, same as some PDF books. I will recommend you this ones (the same that some gently people here tell me to find time ago):



http://www.amazon.com/The-Design-Aeroplane-Darrol-Stinton/dp/0632018771/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1332455793&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/Simplified-Aircraft-Design-Homebuilders-Daniel/dp/0972239707/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_c

http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Wing-Se...d_bxgy_b_img_c


This is a old forum where you can see some photos of what I started to draw in CATIA, and some advice from people:

http://www.oshkosh365.org/ok365_DiscussionBoardTopic.aspx?id=1235&boardid=14 7&forumid=178&topicid=5367

My plan is to fly the thing in X-plane, after that make a radio control model, 1/3 scale, and if it fly good, design the structure of the real one, analyse it in ANSYS, find out some aeronautical ing to check it with me, build the plane, take some acro courses, and see what happen... I'm 29, so until it take me 30 year to do all this things I still will have 60, so I still can enjoy the plane for 10 or so, ja ja! Be patient! There is nothing better than a dream becoming true!!! If I can help you in anything else just send me a message. Good look!

[Dana]

There is no "best" software. To back up a step, as steveinindy said no software is a substitute for a thorough understanding of the principles involved in aircraft design. Even the high end packages are only tools... and remember that people were designing aircraft far more complex than any homebuilt with nothing more than pencil, paper, and slide rules.

That said, to address the above post, CATIA is one of the most powerful CAD software packages out there, but its power is in the area of complex assemblies and multi-engineer collaborations... it's not a program an amateur would be well advised to use to start. For an engineer already using CAD, I'd say to stick with what he knows. Autodesk products (AutoCAD, Inventor, etc.) are not well suited to the kinds of shapes used in aircraft design. The parametric constraint structure of Solidworks and similar programs (including Inventor) can be very cumbersome during early design development. Direct modelers like Keycreator, Rhino, or PTC's Creo are probably the best... and while Keycreator is my personal favorite due to long experience, I'd recommend Rhino (at half the price of Keycreator, and one of the best freeform surface modelers out there) as probably the best place for a serious beginner to start. For a slightly less serious beginner, down the free version of Creo direct (the free version has a part count limitation, I believe, but it's good to get your feet wet).

For aerodynamics, without the budget of large companies, there really isn't anything. AirplanePDQ can help with development, X-plane is a basic simulator that can give you a reality check feel for flight characteristics, but nothing can model the full behavior, particularly near the stall when things are most critical.

Structures... analysis packages like ANSYS, etc., are harder to use than any of the above if you don't really have a thorough understanding of the principles. The old adage "garbage in, garbage out" applies. I'm a professional engineer of some 30 years experience, but structures aren't my specialty, and I wouldn't attempt to work with any type of structural analysis package. I looked at COSMOS a few years back and decided life was too short. And again, for the types of structures used on most homebuilts, hand calculation is more than adequate (and probably faster than setting the problem up in a FEA package).

[subnoize]

anyone know about what the best software for drawing aircraft design? and that software can for test flight?

There are a few packages that will allow you to design, analyze, test fly, test crash your aircraft. The best shrink wrapped package of software is owned by EADS, the Euro plane builder guys. I think the last install I had any knowledge about was well into the millions. It was basically Solidworks with a bunch of really cool plugins.

Can we get close though? Yes, we can get close. You will have to use many products together to actually produce the data. And you will need to know how to stitch it together into a usable reference on your design.

So, here goes the list! Remember that the data coming out of these tools will be worthless to you unless you know how to use it. There is no "Microsoft Word or Excel" for aircraft design (but as you will see it can be boiled down to a spreadsheet!!). Even the big boy software is obtuse at best so I make my first recommendation and beg you to read it FIRST!! Notice I gave you the link to buy the book AND the software from our own little EAA Store!!!!! Please go there first!!

Where To Start:

1. Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders by Dan Raymer (comes with the an Excel spreadsheet, PLEASE GO HERE FIRST!!) http://www.shopeaa.com/simplifiedair...esignbook.aspx

After you have read that little book, and understand it you can go follow the rest of these links ;-)

Conceptualization Software;

1. NASA Project gone Open Source; www.openvsp.org (really cool, good start)
2. NASA CART3D Online Demo (Museum); http://www.desktop.aero/adw.php
3. NASA Projects Available At: http://www.desktop.aero/software.php
- Cart3D
- LinAir
- RAGE
- PASS
- PANDA


Design Software:

1. Rhino3D (Nurbs based, really cool, my fav)
2. Alibre
3. Solidworks, Inventor, Autocad all run together
4. DesignFOIL, this is one product that just works, period! Wing design only http://www.dreesecode.com/

*Special note; Google's SketchUp isn't worth the time...


Test Flight Software

1. X-Plane 10! http://x-plane.com No Question! Hands Down, Slick!

Everyone gets all bent up on that last one! "What? Are you nuts?" By all measures, X-Plane does a damn good job! Very accurate and worth every penny. Use it to keep your skills sharp and then to flight test your concepts to see if it will really fly. Despite what some wrongly claim, you can get into spins in X-Plane 9 and 10. Version 10 is far more-accurate. Almost to a fault...

I hope this helps you get a sense of direction. After the Dan Raymer book I would look at OpenVSP.org next. Really cool idea. X-Plane 10 is always worth it. Get it even on your mobile device!!



snz

[spungey]

*Special note; Google's SketchUp isn't worth the time...

FWIW, SketchUp is free-hand drawing software. It's great if you're an artist already. Autodesk's 123D is what you'd be looking for here. It's a decent free 3d CAD program. But it's not Solidworks. I've been playing with my version for a few days. It's capable of a lot more than I am, but I've heard told from people who know that where it really shines is small stuff that you can throw on a 3d printer or on the cnc router at your local techshop. That covers a lot of ground though, so if you feel compelled to learn even one more tool, then it might be worth your time.