ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT OF BOX-WING AIRCRAFT ARCHITECTURE: METHODOLOGY AND APPLICATION IN THE PARSIFAL PROJECT

This paper proposes a methodology to conduct the economic assessment of a new aircraft concept and presents the results of its application to a disruptive aircraft configuration. The assessment activities are performed with reference to an innovative box-wing aircraft architecture called PrandtlPlane, which was developed in the frame of the PARSIFAL project (Prandtlplane ARchitecture for the Sustainable Improvement of Future AirpLanes). In the first part of the paper, the methodology of assessment is introduced together with the logical structure behind its design and the rationale driving its use. Such a methodology is based on the integration of activities of time and cost estimation with activities of value creation estimation. In the second part, this paper presents the main results of the economic assessment methodology applied to the PrandtlPlane configuration developed in PARSIFAL, finalised to quantify the economic benefits that could be achieved by introducing the PrandtlPlane as future means of air transportation.