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Trim drag, denoted as Dm in the diagram, is the component of aerodynamic drag on an aircraft created by the flight control surfaces, [1] mainly elevators and trimable horizontal stabilizers, when they are used to offset changes in pitching moment and centre of gravity during flight.
The drag curve or drag polar is the relationship between the drag on an aircraft and other variables, such as lift, the coefficient of lift, angle-of-attack or speed. It may be described by an equation or displayed as a graph (sometimes called a "polar plot"). [1] Drag may be expressed as actual drag or the coefficient of drag.
English: Drag curves for an aircraft with a given weight in flight. The parasitic drag increases with the square of flight velocity; The lift-induced drag decreases with the square of velocity. As a result, the total drag (the sum of both components) typically has a minimum value.
Cross-sectional area distribution along the complete airframe determines wave drag, largely independent of the actual shape. The blue and light green shapes are roughly equal in area. The Whitcomb area rule , named after NACA engineer Richard Whitcomb and also called the transonic area rule , is a design procedure used to reduce an aircraft 's ...
Below the airplane, the pressure field persists as a positive pressure disturbance that reaches the ground, forming a pattern of slightly-higher-than-ambient pressure on the ground, as shown on the right. [134] Although the pressure differences are very small far below the airplane, they are spread over a wide area and add up to a substantial ...
An aircraft is streamlined from nose to tail to reduce drag making it advantageous to keep the sideslip angle near zero, though an aircraft may be deliberately "sideslipped" to increase drag and descent rate during landing, to keep aircraft heading same as runway heading during cross-wind landings and during flight with asymmetric power.
The distribution of forces on a wing in flight are both complex and varying. This image shows the forces for two typical airfoils, a symmetrical design on the left, and an asymmetrical design more typical of low-speed designs on the right. This diagram shows only the lift components; the similar drag considerations are not illustrated.
The aerodynamic force is the resultant vector from adding the lift vector, perpendicular to the flow direction, and the drag vector, parallel to the flow direction. Forces on an aerofoil . In fluid mechanics , an aerodynamic force is a force exerted on a body by the air (or other gas ) in which the body is immersed, and is due to the relative ...