DACPEI

DACPEI is a CAD software application specialized in designing fixed-wing aircrafts using a set of modules for analyzing mission profiles, aircraft performance, propulsion, layout design, and sketches with aircraft drawings.

This is a portable utility which can be dropped on portable media devices like USB flash drives and carried it with you. There’s no installation setup included in the process, so you may run it by simply opening the executable file.

Your Windows registry doesn’t get clogged up with extra entries, and you may uninstall the program using simple deletion actions.

Upon a first encounter with the program’s GUI, you are faced with a zero-populated environment with configuration settings. A small floating window (which can be moved anywhere on the screen) includes 9 modules that help you define your aircraft designs.

With just one click on a module, the application opens up a panel in the main window which includes the corresponding customization parameters. You may open multiple modules at the same time and arrange them in the GUI using the drag-and-drop support.

DACPEI helps you define a new mission in terms of stall velocity, rate of climb, available power, take off distance, cruise speed, and passenger weight.

What’s more, you can select between several airfoil types, work with a sizing graph, and choose between several layout types (e.g. rectangular, elliptical).

The initial sketch can be analyzed in a preview panel where you can alter the position of the pilot, engine, wing and tail, zoom in or out, and automatically rotate the design to different angles.

The built-in propeller designer allows you to provide information about the engine power, desired thrust, flying speed, number of blades, and propeller width. You may also preview the propeller design in a dedicated window.

DACPEI is able to compute the required power, rate of climb, and rate of descent based on a custom set of performance parameters which are related to engine (e.g. number of engines, power HP, blades), airplane (e.g. weight, altitude), wing (e.g. surface, efficiency, span), and environment (e.g. density, friction).

When it comes to exporting options, you may save the designs to XML file format so you can import and test them using the FlightGear flight simulator.

DACPEI impresses with its comprehensive suite of features that can be used for creating an aircraft design meticulously.

However, the utility still needs some improvements in terms of functionality. We have tested it on Windows 8.1 Pro and experienced several crashes while trying to customize the aircraft designer.