Potential flow applications to complex configurations

Recent advances in CFD methods have enabled the analytic calculation of the carriage loads for stores mounted on complex aircraft. The latest results have demonstrated excellent agreement with test data for the F-15 at M = 0.98. However, in a preliminary design environment, the necessity of generating and validating a Euler grid to fit the aircraft and store arrangement may not be feasible, particularly when effects of configuration changes are considered. For that reason alternative approaches which require less time to arrive at an answer deserve consideration. The paper presents the results of a study to determine if potential flow solutions can give acceptable estimates of store carriage loads at transonic speeds in a timely manner.