A systems engineering framework for integrating stores with aircraft

Abstract

Military and some civilian aircraft need to carry stores to perform their mission. There is a huge diversity of carriage aircraft and types of stores ranging from missiles, drop tanks, space launchers, and rescue equipment. Adding stores to aircraft has a significant impact on the airworthiness of the carriage aircraft. Stores affect aircraft in multiple ways, making the integration of stores a complex multidisciplinary engineering problem that is often costly to resolve. The current regulatory and technical framework for store integration is reviewed. A systems engineering approach to store integration is presented where both aircraft and stores are designed from the outset to facilitate store integration. While some examples of this being done can be found, much still needs to be done to facilitate cost-effective store integration. Two case studies are presented and discussed showing the utility of this approach.