Right from the start, Piano's clean interface lets you load existing aircraft from its database or define completely new ones from scratch. The 'current aircraft' (whether real or hypothetical) can be evaluated, modified, or saved at anytime. Whenever you change any of the defining parameters, Piano automatically executes a design cycle and runs all interrelated geometry, mass and balance calculations. This creates a new, self-consistent 'current aircraft' accounting for all 'snowball' effects.
You can produce many detailed reports and plots of its aerodynamic characteristics, mass breakdowns, in-flight or takeoff and landing performance, plus much more. Text and pictures are saved in standard formats. Built-in features let you alter the design systematically to create parametric studies and tables, run iterations to match mission targets, or conduct multi-variable numerical optimisations that satisfy a variety of performance goals and constraints.
If you are only interested in a given aircraft, you can use Piano as a pure performance program to evaluate standard or off-design missions and other flight characteristics, including time/ distance/ fuel or emissions for complex, user-definable sequences of arbitrary flight manoeuvres.
The following sections summarise Piano's capabilities. For more detail, try the User's Guide.
• Input Parameters
• Geometry and Balance
• Mass Estimation
• Aerodynamic Characteristics
• Engine Modelling
• Ranges & Mission Performance
• Takeoff & Landing Field Lengths
• Parametric Studies & Numerical Optimisation
• Flight Manoeuvres & Sequences
• Environmental Emissions & Costs
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