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Wing loading is a useful measure of the stalling speed of an aircraft. Wings generate lift owing to the motion of air around the wing. Larger wings move more air, so an aircraft with a large wing area relative to its mass (i.e., low wing loading) will have a lower stalling speed.
Most importantly, the maximum lift-to-drag ratio is independent of the weight of the aircraft, the area of the wing, or the wing loading. It can be shown that two main drivers of maximum lift-to-drag ratio for a fixed wing aircraft are wingspan and total wetted area. One method for estimating the zero-lift drag coefficient of an aircraft is the ...
For a given lift distribution and wing planform area, induced drag is reduced with increasing aspect ratio. As a consequence, aircraft for which a high lift-to-drag ratio is desirable, such as gliders or long-range airliners, typically have high aspect ratio wings.
Like winglets, they increase the effective wing aspect ratio and diminish wingtip vortices, decreasing lift-induced drag. In testing by Boeing and NASA, they reduce drag by as much as 5.5%, compared to 3.5% to 4.5% for conventional winglets. [1] While an increase in span would be more effective than a same-length winglet, its bending moment is ...
At about Mach 2, a typical wing design will cut its L/D ratio in half (e.g., Concorde managed a ratio of 7.14, whereas the subsonic Boeing 747 has an L/D ratio of 17). [21] Because an aircraft's design must provide enough lift to overcome its own weight, a reduction of its L/D ratio at supersonic speeds requires additional thrust to maintain ...
The main advantage of the BWB is to reduce wetted area and the accompanying form drag associated with a conventional wing-body junction. It may also be given a wide airfoil-shaped body, allowing the entire craft to generate lift and thus reducing the size and drag of the wings. The BWB configuration is used for both aircraft and underwater gliders.
The lift-to-drag ratio, or L/D ratio, is the amount of lift generated by a wing or vehicle, divided by the drag it creates by moving through the air. A higher or more favourable L/D ratio is typically one of the major goals in aircraft design; since a particular aircraft's needed lift is set by its weight, delivering that lift with lower drag ...
An example of an optimization proof of concept was done in 2003 by Leoviriyakit using the Boeing 747-200. [4] Using the variable list above, he optimized for only a single point – a lift coefficient of 0.42 and a speed of Mach 0.87, just above cruising.