OpenVSP — The Complete Guide: Free Parametric Aircraft Modelling for Conceptual Design

OpenVSP (Vehicle Sketch Pad) is an open-source NASA tool for rapid geometric modelling of air vehicles. You build an aircraft, UAV or missile from parametric components — wing, fuselage, engines and stabilisers — and get complete geometry ready for analysis. It is aimed at the conceptual stage, where you test twenty configurations rather than detail one.

OpenVSP

NASA

NASA parametric aircraft geometry modelling for conceptual design.

Mechanical EngineeringCompletely FreeOpen SourceLinuxmacOSWindowsCAD & Drafting

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What you get

• Parametric components — span, chord, sweep, airfoils and fuselage sections driven by numbers.
• VSPAERO — vortex-lattice and panel aerodynamics: lift, induced drag and stability.
• Geometry for calculations — wetted areas, volumes, parasite drag estimates and mass properties.
• Export — STL, STEP and IGES for CFD meshing, printing or CAD.
• Automation — a Python API and scripts for parametric studies.

Who it suits

Aerospace students, competition teams and UAV designers who want to go from an idea to a configuration with numbers in hours. It is not detailed production CAD: once a configuration is chosen, move to FreeCAD for structural design. A community repository of ready models is a good place to learn from.

Related tools

For airfoil analysis — XFOIL; for a wing or small aircraft — XFLR5. For optimisation that links several disciplines — OpenMDAO. For full CFD on the exported geometry — SU2.

XFLR5

XFLR5 Project

Aerofoil and aircraft analysis for low Reynolds numbers.

Mechanical EngineeringCompletely FreeOpen SourceLinuxmacOSWindowsSimulation & FEA

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XFOIL

MIT — Mark Drela

Airfoil analysis and design at low Reynolds numbers — the classic reference in the field.

Mechanical EngineeringCompletely FreeOpen SourceLinuxmacOSWindowsSimulation & FEA

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OpenMDAO

NASA Glenn Research Center

A framework for multidisciplinary optimisation, from NASA.

Mechanical EngineeringCompletely FreeOpen SourceLinuxmacOSWindowsSimulation & FEA

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SU2

SU2 Foundation

Multiphysics CFD with adjoint-based design optimisation — systematic shape improvement.

Mechanical EngineeringCompletely FreeOpen SourceLinuxmacOSWindowsComputational Fluid Dynamics

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The bottom line

OpenVSP is the fastest free way from an idea to an aircraft configuration with preliminary analysis — a NASA tool, open to everyone.

Further reading

• XFLR5 — The Complete Guide: Free Analysis of Airfoils, Wings and Small Aircraft
• XFOIL — The Complete Guide: Free Airfoil Analysis and Design at Low Reynolds Numbers
• OpenMDAO — The Complete Guide: Free, Open-Source Multidisciplinary Optimisation From NASA