Analysis Of Aerodynamic And Radar Target Characteristic And Longitudinal Stability Of Air Early Warning

The AEW(Air Early Warning) has ability of early detection, target recognition, tracking, commanding and guiding it's own aircraft to perform combat missions, which has great significance for the modern war. The research object of this paper is E-3, a foreign advanced AEW. The three dimensional digital model of E-3 is reconstructed to calculate and analyze the aerodynamic characteristics, radar target characteristic and longitudinal stability.In this paper, the 3D shape reconstruction of the E-3 AEW has been carried out based on the target engineering drawing and the local image. The whole airplane has been meshed by using the mixing grid. The numerical simulation based on the RANS equation has been carried out. The influence of radome on aerodynamic characteristics of E-3 AEW has been discussed through the analysis and comparison of aerodynamic characteristics of the plane which has or not the radome with different angles of attack. The characteristics of the radar target have been analyzed by using physical optics method to calculate the RCS of the E-3 early warning aircraft at the main ground penetrating radar with different angles. The influence of the radome on the longitudinal stability of the E-3 AEW was analyzed based on aerodynamic characteristics of E-3 AEW and the airplane without radome. The method of vertical control and stability has been briefly introduced by the way.The analysis indicates that: because of the existence of the radome, the E-3 AWACS lift coefficient is essentially the same, the drag coefficient is a little increasement, lift to drag ratio is slightly decreased. The RCS of E-3 AEW which is a conventional layout plane is a little high. The peak of RCS is located in lateral. Under the assumption that the weight of the other parts of the airplane is unchanged, the radome has a negative effect on the longitudinal stability of the whole machine.