Developed by the Laboratory for Emerging Aircraft Design and Systems at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
What is RCAIDE?
RCAIDE is a powerful open-source Python platform for aircraft design and analysis. From commercial airliners to UAVs and next-generation hybrid-electric aircraft, RCAIDE provides comprehensive multi-disciplinary tools backed by validated engineering methods.
Multi-disciplinary Analysis
Aerodynamics, propulsion, weights, and performance — fully integrated in one framework.
OpenVSP & AVL Integration
Automatic geometry generation and aerodynamic analysis with industry-standard external tools.
Electric & Hybrid Propulsion
Advanced modeling for all-electric, hybrid-electric, cryogenic hydrogen, and SAF aircraft.
Mission Simulation
Full trajectory simulation with fuel burn, emissions, noise, and operating cost analysis.
Adopted Worldwide
RCAIDE has been adopted by aerospace engineers and researchers across industry, government, and academia worldwide. Building on the legacy of SUAVE — one of the most widely used open-source aircraft design tools — RCAIDE delivers modern architecture, expanded capabilities, and long-term maintainability.
Trusted by Leading Organizations
Industry & Government: NASA, Boeing, AFRL, Embraer, Joby, Vahana, Argonne National Labs, Bombardier, Raytheon, BAE, Google
Academia: MIT, Purdue, Embry-Riddle, Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Stanford, Cranfield, University of Sydney, TU Delft, IIT, University of Toronto, Concordia, ISAE
RCAIDE Worldwide Downloads
Digital Hangar
Explore aerospace vehicles modeled and analyzed with RCAIDE
Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner
Long-haul commercial transport · Twin turbofan
Explore all models on GitHub →RCAIDE GUI
A visual aircraft design, analysis, and mission simulation workspace built on top of RCAIDE. Configure vehicles, set up missions, run analyses, and explore results — all without writing a single line of code.
- Interactive vehicle geometry builder
- Drag-and-drop mission setup
- Real-time performance and emissions results
- Built-in results viewer and plotting
External Interfaces
RCAIDE currently supports two external packages, OpenVSP and AVL. Users can automatically generate OpenVSP geometry from RCAIDE and read in geometry to perform mission simulations. RCAIDE's AVL interface enables automatic generation of AVL files and running AVL directly through a built-in Python API. The development team is actively working on an SU2 high-fidelity CFD interface.
Sponsors
Verification & Validation
RCAIDE's methods are validated against experimental data and high-fidelity simulations. Aerodynamic predictions achieve R² = 0.96 (CL) and R² = 0.94 (CD) against NASA wind-tunnel data for the Common Research Model.
Read the PaperRelease Notes
View the full version history, changelog, and all published releases of RCAIDE on PyPI.
View on PyPI