FEASIBILITY OF ROUGH TERRAIN/WILD WEATHER BASING OF SLAVED TANDEM FREEWING (STF) UAVS

A SLAVED TANDEM FREEWING (STF) AIRCRAFT IS A NOVEL, TANDEM WING, V/STOL AIR VEHICLE CONFIGURATION WITH UNIQUE POTENTIAL FOR SELFLAUNCHING AND SELF-RECOVERY FROM BASES WITHOUT FLAT AND EVEN PLATFORMS (ROUGH TERRAIN) DURING PERIODS WHEN WIND VECTORS ARE GUSTY, LARGE AND ALIGNED IN THE MOST ADVERSE DIRECTION (WILD WEATHER). THIS STUDY WILL EVALUATE THE POTENTIAL OF STF AIRFRAMES TO SATISFY THIS ROUGH AND WILD BASING CRITERION AND EXAMINE POTENTIAL MODIFICATIONS OF CURRENT STF DESIGNS TO IMPROVE THE DEGREE TO WHICH CURRENT CONFIGURATIONS SATISFY THE CRITERION. THE WORK WILL INCLUDE AN ANALYSIS OF THE ROUGH AND WILD BASING PROBLEM AS RELATED TO THE STF CONFIGURATION AND OF THE BENEFITS TO UAV CAPABILITIES OF ITS SOLUTION, A PRELIMINARY DESIGN STUDY OF SELECTED ROUGH AND WILD ENHANCEMENTS TO STF DESIGNS, AND A SUB-SCALE FLIGHT TEST EVALUATION OF THOSE ENHANCEMENTS. THE EXPECTED RESULT IS A REPORT SUMMARIZING THE FEASIBILITY OF THE DESIGN OBJECTIVE.