Statistical Time and Market Predictive Engineering Design (STAMPED) Techniques for Preliminary Aircraft Sizing

A new technique for preliminary sizing and design of certain aircraft categories will be presented. These Statistical Time and Market Predictive Engineering Design (STAMPED) methodologies can be applied to many different product lines with historical data bases (even outside of the aerospace industry). The generalized terminology and trend-tracking methods will be presented for a generic broad, established category of goods. The generalized terminology will then be refined and focused on aircraft, then one or more categories of aircraft including regional turboprops in particular will be used as an example. By using STAMPED techniques it will be shown that “classical” preliminary aircraft design techniques which call upon the use of “appropriate” numbers for certain engineering values can be replaced with far more exacting, historically based methods to determine certain aircraft characteristics in the preliminary aircraft design stage. An example tracking power loading and wing loading of regional turboprops shows that “classical” design methods of choosing ranges of maximum lift coefficient can be replaced by observing market trends and statistical variable means and standard deviation trends with time. An analysis of the regional turboprop market over the past 30 years shows a decided concentration of power and wing loading at specific values with well defined trends stretching into the future. An extrapolation exercise using STAMPED techniques shows market direction projected into the future for projected IOC dates. The study concludes with a presentation of several STAMPED trends for a number of aircraft variables over the past 30 years. A final tracking shows strong sensitivity of several aircraft design parameters to spot oil prices through time with consistently decreasing lag times between oil price and market trends.