Abstract
With the interest in long range air transportation, the question arises concerning the design philosophy of long range LFC transports, which can reach any point on earth at high subsonic speeds with relatively large payloads without refuelling. Figure 1 shows as an example a 180,000 kg take-off gross weight LFC transport airplane with 50,000 kg payload (250 passengers plus cargo) cruising at M cruise = 0.83. Cruise lift to drag ratios of 39.4 appear feasible with 70% laminar flow on the wing-, tail-, nacelle- and strut surfaces by means of suitable geometry and boundary layer suction in the upstream parts of these surfaces, while accepting a turbulent fuselage. At the same time the induced drag to lift ratio D i /L = W/πqb 2 is minimized by raising the wing span b and aspect ratio b 2/S. Advanced overall and detailed design concepts were used to minimize the wing structural weight [Ref. 1].
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References
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© 1992 Springer-Verlag New York, Inc.
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Pfenninger, W., Vemuru, C.S. (1992). Design Philosophy of Long Range LFC Transports with Advanced Supercritical LFC Airfoils. In: Barnwell, R.W., Hussaini, M.Y. (eds) Natural Laminar Flow and Laminar Flow Control. ICASE/NASA LaRC Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2872-1_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-2872-1_5
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