Classical and neo-classical cruise-dash optimization

Abstract

Cruise-dash flight performance is analyzed in the context of singular perturbations. Attention is given to the problem of determining an atmospheric flight path between given end points which minimizes a linear combination of time and fuel. It is shown that nonconvexity in the fuel-flow vs. airspeed graph has important consequences in optimum-cruise problems with time restrictions. Certain velocity regions are nonoptimal for cruise-dash and optimal cruise-dash sometimes requires time-shared operation between two altitude-airspeed points. Calculations are presented illustrating the occurrence of time-shared operation between two altitude-airspeed combinations for optimal cruise-dash.