Welcome to the Flight Vehicle Research and Technology Division of the Aeronautics Directorate at NASA Ames Research Center. We are composed of three branches: the Aeromechanics Branch, the Autonomous Flight Systems Branch, and the Systems Analysis and Integration Branch.

The Aeromechanics Branch addresses flight characteristics, handling qualities, structural design issues, and operational capabilities of a wide variety of flight vehicles including rotorcraft, tilt-rotors, short-takeoff and landing vehicles, and planetary aircraft.

Recent accomplishments include:

• Support for critical V-22 Tilt-Rotor Program Challenges:
• Vortex ring state
• Shipboard operations — roll on deck
• Critical azimuth
• Hover performance
• Formation flight
• Pilot-vehicle control response
• Pitch-up with side slip
• Helicopter noise reduction

Visit the Aeromechanics Branch website.

The Autonomous Flight Systems Branch investigates the use of automation for guidance, control, planning, and decision-making for piloted and unpiloted flight vehicles.

Recent accomplishments include:

• Crew station design for VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) all-weather operations
• Refined probabilistic wake depiction algorithms
• Employed pursuit tracking guidance, high precision manual backup, and traffic and wake
• Employed probabilistic longitudinal spacing algorithms for wake separation and refined speed control for longitudinal spacing

The Systems Analysis and Integration Branch develops and applies systems analysis tools to assess the performance and design tradeoffs of conceptual and/or operational flight vehicles. Analysis methodology is employed to achieve higher performance through more effective integration of vehicle subsystems.

Recent accomplishments include:

• Launch Vehicle Studies—separation aerodynamics and risk assessment
• CEV design/studies —Outer moldline (OML) design, thermal protection systems (TPS) support, and aero/aerothermal environment characterization
• Mission-based IT studies and tradeoffs—IT impact and gap analysis
• Fundamental aeronautics—Subsonics computational fluid dynamics (CFD) development and application; hypersonics entry analysis tool development