This paper presents the details of development of an efficient design method for aircraft engine sand separator systems. The development of such a method was felt necessary to address the problem of sand ingestion since it is a vital concern for the regional aviation community because of the desert environment as it can seriously affect the operation, performance and life cycle of a turbine engine employed for aviation or industrial applications. The design method makes use of state-of-the-art and practical design and analysis techniques, such as the inverse aerodynamic design methodology that also takes into account viscous effects to aid in the design of specific profile shapes for engine air intakes. The sand separator design is achieved by giving a specific contour to the intake profile (such as a highly curved bend in the duct) that the contaminants because of their inertial momentum are forced away from the central flow. Since the sand particles can rebound of the air intake walls and enter the engine, the method takes into account sand particle rebound or restitution characteristics in the design. The design is accomplished with the aid of optimization techniques in both the inverse aerodynamic design as well as in the sand separator system design. In addition, to facilitate the design, several numerical programs and graphical user interface have been developed to aid in the design and analysis of aircraft engine sand separator systems in an interactive manner. Several design examples are presented to demonstrate the usefulness and utility of the method.