OpenMDAO
FLOPS aircraft type for mass estimation is not being properly set
Description
FLOPS-based mass has equations for 3 types of aircraft - transports, blended-wing-bodies, and general aviation. However, the flag to set this is not defined in the variable hierarchy and therefore isn't set during a normal Aviary run - it always defaults to transport inside the computation components themselves.
Add Aircraft.Design.AIRCRAFT_TYPE, with a clear description that this used for FLOPS mass estimation. Equivalent FLOPS variable IFITE. FLOPS manual states GA equations are "incomplete", and we need to verify if that is still true.
Add an Enum for aircraft type and use that as accepted values for AIRCRAFT_TYPE
Example
wing_common.py has some examples of component options being defined ("aircraft_type") but they are never set by the wing mass or mass summation groups. They default to "transport", which is also the only set of equations that have proper testing.
Aviary Version
0.9.4-dev
Relevant environment information
No response
I think FLOPS also has a fighter/attack aircraft option (IFITE = 1) Are we planning to include this functionality in Aviary?
Good point, that was poorly worded. More accurately, Aviary desires to support 3 of FLOPS' mass regression equations. Currently we have no plans to port over the fighter regressions - doesn't mean never, but likely not in the short or medium term
Making sure BWB is working, and maybe finishing up the GA equations is higher priority
To further clarify what we need: Replace "aircraft_type" with a few variable name Aircraft.Design.AIRCRAFT_TYPE. That variable should have 3 options set via Enum, TRANSPORT, BLENDED_WING_BODY, and GENERAL_AVIATION.
Right now in code BWB is referred to as HWB, but FLOPS terminology is actually BWB for this entire class of vehicle (doesn't differentiate HWB and BWB). Not all equations may be properly updated to account for BWB/GA but that is ok right now, we just need the variable in place to upgrade those equations later.
Update the unittest for wing_common.py to make sure the components that use this variable provide the expected answer when provided different aircraft types
Update: This issue is partially complete. BLENDED_WING_BODY is officially a supported transport type. wing_common.py does not yet use the proper variable