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Purpose The typical approach of modeling the aerodynamics of an aircraft is to develop a complete database through testing or computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The database will be huge if it has a reasonable resolution and requires an unacceptable CFD effort during the conceptional design. Therefore, this paper aims to reduce the computing effort required via establishing a general aerodynamic model that needs minor parameters. Design/methodology/approach The model structure was a preconfigured polynomial model, and the parameters were estimated with a recursive method to further reduce the calculation effort. To uniformly disperse the sample points through each step, a unique recursive sampling method based on a Voronoi diagram was presented. In addition, a multivariate orthogonal function approach was used. Findings A case study of a flying wing aircraft demonstrated that generating a model with acceptable precision (0.01 absolute error or 5% relative error) costs only 1/54 of the cost of creating a database. A series of six degrees of freedom flight simulations shows that the model’s prediction was accurate. Originality/value This method proposed a new way to simplify the model and recursive sampling. It is a low-cost way of obtaining high-fidelity models during primary design, allowing for more precise flight dynamics analysis.

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