Introduction | Designing Missions | The Mission Window | Initial Aircraft Setup | Phases of Flight | Procedures and Sites | 3D Mission Editing| Catalogs
Aircraft Mission Modeler provides an enhanced method for modeling aircraft - more accurate and more flexible than the standard Great Arc propagator. With Aircraft Mission Modeler, the aircraft's route is modeled by a sequence of curves parameterized by well known performance characteristics of aircraft, including cruise airspeed, climb rate, roll rate, and bank angle. The precise state of an aircraft at any given time can be computed analytically - swiftly and without excessive data storage needs.
An aircraft using Aircraft Mission Modeler is defined by the type of aircraft and by the mission it performs. This structure allows you to utilize an aircraft for much more than simple linear travel.
You can select the aircraft from a number of pre-defined and user-defined aircraft types. Each aircraft type can be customized by changing the built-in performance model settings of the aircraft, the 3D model used to represent the aircraft, and by adding, changing, and removing custom performance models.
A mission is a sequence of procedures that utilize aircraft performance models to define the vehicle's route and flight characteristics. The mission can be organized into phases, which are logical constructs that allow you to vary the performance models being used to suit different elements of the mission.
Aircraft Mission Modeler is a highly conceptual vehicle propagator that performs best when certain considerations - detailed in the notes that follow - are kept in mind.
Aircraft Mission Modeler Object Properties
As an STK object, an Aircraft Mission Modeler aircraft has the same object properties as a Great Arc vehicle. The Attitude properties page, however, has no effect since Aircraft Mission Modeler determines the aircraft's attitude.
Altitude Reference and Aircraft Mission Modeler (Flight Path Warning Message)
Aircraft Mission Modeler performs best in the 3D Graphics window when the surface reference of the globe is set to Mean Sea Level. You will receive a warning message when you apply changes or click OK to close the properties window of an Aircraft Mission Modeler object with the surface reference set to WGS84. It is highly recommended that you set the surface reference as indicated before working with Aircraft Mission Modeler.
The surface reference can be changed by taking the following steps:
Airspeed Values
All airspeed values that you enter or that are displayed in Aircraft Mission Modeler reflect the airspeed of the aircraft at the specified altitude. For example, if your aircraft's altitude is set to 42,000 ft and you enter an airspeed of 0.7 Mach number, then the airspeed is 0.7 at 42,000 ft.
Terminology
STK uses many astrodynamics terms outside of Aircraft Mission Modeler. This help system contains a glossary at the end of the table of contents that defines most of the common astrodynamics terminology used in STK.