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Aspect ratio (aeronautics) An ASH 31 glider with very high aspect ratio (AR=33.5) and lift-to-drag ratio (L/D=56) In aeronautics, the aspect ratio of a wing is the ratio of its span to its mean chord. It is equal to the square of the wingspan divided by the wing area. Thus, a long, narrow wing has a high aspect ratio, whereas a short, wide wing ...
The ratio of the length (or span) of a rectangular-planform wing to its chord is known as the aspect ratio, an important indicator of the lift-induced drag the wing will create. [7] (For wings with planforms that are not rectangular, the aspect ratio is calculated as the square of the span divided by the wing planform area.)
Wing configuration. The Spitfire wing may be classified as: "a conventional low-wing cantilever monoplane with unswept elliptical wings of moderate aspect ratio and slight dihedral". The wing configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft (including both gliders and powered aeroplanes) is its arrangement of lifting and related surfaces.
The natural outcome of this requirement is a wing design that is thin and wide, which has a low thickness-to-chord ratio. At lower speeds, undesirable parasitic drag is largely a function of the total surface area, which suggests using a wing with minimum chord, leading to the high aspect ratios seen on light aircraft and regional airliners ...
Lift and drag are the two components of the total aerodynamic force acting on an aerofoil or aircraft. In aerodynamics, the lift-to-drag ratio (or L/D ratio) is the lift generated by an aerodynamic body such as an aerofoil or aircraft, divided by the aerodynamic drag caused by moving through air. It describes the aerodynamic efficiency under ...
The Oswald efficiency is defined for the cases where the overall coefficient of drag of the wing or airplane has a constant+quadratic dependence on the aircraft lift coefficient. where. For conventional fixed-wing aircraft with moderate aspect ratio and sweep, Oswald efficiency number with wing flaps retracted is typically between 0.7 and 0.85 ...
However, since wingspan can be increased while decreasing aspect ratio, or vice versa, the apparent relationship between aspect ratio and induced drag does not always hold. [ 2 ] [ 9 ] : 489 For a typical twin-engine wide-body aircraft at cruise speed, induced drag is the second-largest component of total drag, accounting for approximately 37% ...
For efficient steady flight, the ratio of span to chord, the aspect ratio, should be as high as possible (the constraints are usually structural) because this lowers the lift-induced drag associated with the inevitable wingtip vortices. Long-ranging birds, like albatrosses, and most commercial aircraft maximize aspect ratio.