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Airplanes by Design 2011

December 28, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Airplanes by Design is a weekly column of airplane photos taken from a test pilot perspective–it’s been going for over a year now, so I thought a review/summary was in order. This column rests on three key principles:

1. We can gain a valuable perspective on the flight test of aircraft old and new by studying the design of airplanes and by looking at their parts. This is a kind of data collection.

2. A picture is worth a thousand words. Expect me to say very little, so that the photos can talk. And there will always be links to more, to similar photos (hopefully of the same airplane or airplane parts).

3. Innovation sometimes happens insidiously, in very small steps.

It is my hope that these pictures might provide a key piece of historical data, a tipping point insight, or inspiration to a fellow or future aerospace practitioner.

As a test pilot, I have a keen interest in airplane design, past, present, and future. As we all know, a picture is worth a thousand words, and it would take volumes to record the lessons we can learn from a well taken photo of an airplane.

By “well-taken” I do not mean to claim I have mastered all the subtleties of photography, but I do mean that it captures the design characteristics in an illustrative sort of way. So I would like to prescribe a methodical approach to capturing an airplane on film (or digital media) for the rest of us in the aerospace community.

The acronym WEFT–wings, engine, fuselage, tail–is the capstone of the method. Together with a circular walk around the airplane, you are sure to record countless details that may have otherwise been missed. In subsequent Airplanes by Design posts (which by the way, I’ve placed in the category Airplane) I’ll expound on each of these in more detail.

How to Take an Airplane Photo was a regularly featured topic in this column and consisted of the following posts this past year:

1. How to Take an Airplane Photo

2. How to Take…Wings

3. How to Take…Engines

4. How to Take…Fuselage

5. How to Take…Airplane Tails

Other great places to see unique flight test airplane pictures: NASA Dryden’s website, the US Air Force Museum, or the complete Airplanes by Design photostream on Flickr.

Airplanes by Design features photographs of aircraft from a test pilot perspective, highlighting aeronautical engineering characteristics and flight test facts. To see all of the these pictures (and many more of this aircraft and it’s unique design characteristics), click here. You will always be able to access any of these pictures by selecting the Flickr icon in the right sidebar, from (almost) any page.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

Airplanes by Design – HondaJet

December 21, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Today’s blog post sends you to HondaJet’s website to watch a video of the first conformal aircraft from Honda Jet–it’s design is a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

Airplanes by Design – NASA F-8 Supercritical Wing

December 14, 2011 in Airplane with 1 Comment

NASA modified the Vought F-8 Crusader with an airfoil design known as the Supercritical wing, a shape designed to increase critical Mach number. Critical Mach number is the airspeed at which airflow over some part of the aircraft transitions to supersonic. The odd shape–thick in the middle–as seen by the hump behind the cockpit–is what accomplishes this aerodynamic feat.

This aircraft is now on display at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center.

Here is a view that really highlights the increased thickness of the airfoil root starting at about 10% chord at not tapering out until approximately 70% chord.

As the note says, this airfoil design is routinely used in modern transport aircraft, like the C-17.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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Airplanes by Design – P-40 Warhawk, on a Day that Shall Live in Infamy

December 7, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

On December 7, 1941, a “day that shall live in infamy,” the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. An Air Force tradition that honors the lost and fallen is known as the missing man formation, a flyover in which a conspicuous member of the formation is clearly absent from his position. A sculpture stands at Randolph AFB a to remind of us this flying tribute to the sacrifices of America’s servants.

The Curtiss P-4o Warhawk took to the skies over Hawaii that infamous day to defend our country. I can think of no more fitting tribute to the American spirit, than these pictures of a P-40 Warhawk. That this plane still flies today by a group of dedicated American citizens, the Commemorative Air Force, is a living heritage of the freedom preserved by the men who flew it so many years ago.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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Airplanes by Design – Boeing 737 Wing Surface

November 30, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Several flights on Boeing 737 aircraft recently led me to question the placement of vortex generators on the upper wing surface.

I believe that all of these pictures are Southwest aircraft, which also sport the winglet variation of the 737 design.

I should have made a note about whether or not these where installed perpendicular to the leading edge or documented my observations about the angle between it and the flow.

Here is a wider-field of view. It shows an unique curvilinear pattern of the vortex generators.

There was a question posted here on the pattern of the vortex generators. And there is a fantastic site here about many of the technical details of the 737.

The US Air Force operated a variant of the 737 for many years, the T-43 Bobcat.

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Airplanes by Design — H-60 Blackhawk Helicopter

November 23, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

A helicopter is most definitely not an airplane. But is is an aircraft, and the laws of aerodynamics still apply. I enjoyed flying a US Air Force HH-60 and a US Navy UH-60 in 2008 during Test Pilot School.

This is an Army H-60 Blackhawk.

The thin airfoil cross-section of the rotor is barely visible here. I am curious about the flared end of the rotor blade.

Perhaps one of the most mechanically amazing parts of a helicopter–its engine/rotor integration. The rotor plane can be tilted, so that the blades are spinning lower in the front than in the back, which creates “thrust” for taxiing on the ground for example. The pitch (or angle of attack) of the blades is also changed to create lift and maintain altitude.

The tail rotor counteracts the tremendous torque created by the main rotor and keeps the aircraft from spinning like a top. There are also traditional control surfaces like an elevator which is used primarily to change airspeed (pitch for airspeed as when climbing under a constant power setting in an airplane).

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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Airplanes by Design – Encore presentation of the T-6A Texan II

November 16, 2011 in Airplane with 1 Comment

I have less than a week left in Texas flying the T-6A Texan II. In the future, I will be flying it in Columbus, MS. And I finally got some more detailed photos of this aircraft.

Here is the flagship of the 559th Flying Training Squadron at Randolph AFB, Texas.

The canopy/cockpit is not something addressed often in this column, but interestingly, the T-6 canopy does not depart the aircraft during ejection. Instead, the explosive charge you see in the canopy centerline overhead shatters the canopy. If that fails, the pointed tip of the ejection seat will break the canopy.

The tail surfaces of the T-6 have leading edge extensions on both the horizontal and vertical surfaces. Additionally, a ventral fin appears below the fuselage. These are normally design fixes for spin characteristics and yaw stability.

This photo reveals the characteristics of the airfoil shape that makes up the wing and shows a significant amount of dihedral in the wings.

Click here to read more about this airplane, or click here to read about its cousin, the PC-9.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

Airplanes by Design – Sukhoi T-50 PAK-FA

November 9, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

The Sukhoi T-50, otherwise known as the PAK-FA is Russia’s answer to the F-22 and F-35. It first flew in January 2010, and it has recently made its 100th flight. (Photo credit: Avionews.com)

You can see design features of other Sukhoi aircraft in its lineage, and there are also features similar to the F-22.

This video shows some of the PAK-FA flight test.

Airplanes by Design – An Airshow

November 2, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

This past weekend was the Randolph Airshow in San Antonio — three days of airplane goodness. Airshows are fantastic because there are many, many static displays to take pictures of and because the aerial feats are wonders of aerodynamics in and of themselves. I wish I had a good video camera! I’m hoping to begin coordinating with airshow directors and colleges (where the airshows are taking place) to promote science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in 2012.

Here are just a few of the many, many pictures I took this weekend.

The P-40 Warhawk – Beautifully designed elliptical wing. I can’t help but think that the large fuselage forward of the wing would create directional (yaw) instability at high angles of attack.

UH-60 Blackhawk Helicopter – Rotorcraft aerodynamics still boggle my mind, but helicopters, especially one with a highly augmented flight control system, like the Blackhawk, are very fun to fly.

Boeing’s 707, modified with a refueling boom is the KC-135 Stratotanker. It has gone through many design changes over its lifetime, including bigger turbofan engines.

I had to put this one in because it has both the F-15E Strike Eagle and the C-17A Globemaster III.

As you can see, there are so many different kinds of airplanes and aircraft design features that one could adapt a syllabus of instruction and discussion, or create a type of lab activity for STEM students that would be extremely fun as well. Airshows have the added benefit that often the pilots are available to answer questions about the aircraft, giving further insight into aircraft design features that cannot be readily “witnessed” from the outside, things like flight control systems and handling qualities.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

Boeing Tiltrotor 2020 – Airplanes by Design

October 26, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Boeing released these pictures of future Tiltrotor concepts (as reported by FlightGlobal.com), a modification or offspring of the V-22. Tiltrotor aircraft maximize design features of both helicopters and airplanes, but they also suffer from the weaknesses of both aircraft.

Click here to read more about this airplane from the Boeing website.

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Piaggio P180 – Airplanes by Design

October 19, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

The Piaggio P180 compares favorably with its Italian earthbound cousin, the Ferrari. This picture is a free download from their website, which has many more fantastic images.

Several years ago, flightglobal.com did an impressive survey on the technical details of its design characteristics here.

Airplanes by Design features photographs of aircraft from a test pilot perspective, highlighting aeronautical engineering characteristics and flight test facts. To see other aircraft pictures (and many more of aircraft unique design characteristics), click here. You will always be able to access any of these pictures by selecting the Flickr icon in the right sidebar, from (almost) any page.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird – Airplanes by Design

October 12, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Some airplanes defy the intuition that we have about design. The SR-71 is one of them. It flies at Mach 3.0+, and its design reflects this fact.

Of its unique characteristics: “Delta” or blended wings. High speed engine inlets. Extremely thin cross section with little room for anything except fuel and minimal surveillance/reconnaissance payload. The skin of the aircraft feels like electric tape.

Non-traditional tail surfaces combine vertical stabilizers with aileron functionality.

The inlet demonstrates a precise design for high speed flight.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

Airplanes by Design – Why Are We Here

October 5, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

Airplanes by Design is a column recurring weekly. I plan to base this blog on three key principles:
1. We can gain a valuable perspective on the flight test of aircraft old and new by studying the design of airplanes and by looking at their parts. This is a kind of data collection.

3. Innovation sometimes happens insidiously, in very small steps.
It is my hope that these pictures might provide a key piece of historical data, a tipping point insight, or inspiration to a fellow or future aerospace practitioner. More info on the methods of photography and analysis appear here.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

North American X-15 – Airplanes by Design

September 28, 2011 in Airplane with 1 Comment

The X-15 was an early research project into materials and human factors at the edge of space. One of the lesser known facts about hypersonic vehicles, discovered in part with this research, is the need to blunt or round the leading edge because of heating. Sharp leading edges (typical of supersonic aircraft designs) are not suitable for hypersonic flight.

Here is the aft section of the aircraft.

The nose section of the X-15 reminds me of the SR-71.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

North American CT-39A Sabreliner

September 21, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

The tail is an amazing thing, featuring both vertical (stabilizer/rudder) and horizontal (stabilizer/elevator) airfoils. Furthermore, the tail, unlike the wing, is not usually fitted with devices (like slats or flaps) that will significantly alter it’s geometry for fixed periods of time. Therefore it’s design challenges are unique.

Trimming the stabilizer gives the horizontal tail a greater range of motion and decreases drag created by a deflected elevator, as featured here.

The birds don’t seem to be bothered by the anti-bird devices. The horizontal stabilizer/elevator appears to have a symmetric airfoil. It’s also typical for a vertical stabilizer to share this characteristic.

I am always curious about the leading edge extension found on many vertical stabilizers, like this one. One of the design challenges for tails is consideration of engine-out flying qualities, but the short moment-arm of the nacelles mounted on the empennage make this less significant in this aircraft.
These pictures were generously shared by? and have been added to the shared gallery of Airplanes by Design, and the story to go along with them is available on his blog.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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Airplanes by Design – Tails of the Future

September 14, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

What will the tail of the future look like? Aircraft designers are currently exploring options where engines are mounted above the tails, because this configuration reduces noise pollution. Aviation week shared an article on a recently filed Airbus patent utilizing a variant of this design here.

Notice the open rotor jet engines mounted above the tail planes in the artist’s rendition at left (credit: Aviation Week).

The risk of this design is damage to vertical and horizontal stabilizers in the event of blade departures from the engine.

The Airbus design addresses this by deploying surfaces from beneath the fuselage to dampen sound. This first drawing does not show the tail surfaces.

The second drawing shows the view from above, including the tail surfaces.

Airplanes by Design – Comparing Tails

September 7, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

The tail of an aircraft is another collection of airfoils, but this time they come in the vertical (rudders and stabilizers) and horizontal (stabilizers and elevators) varieties. There are T-tail, t-tail, and traditional tail designs, and more recently we’ve seen V-tails and twin tails. Many of the characteristics of wings are also characteristics of these smaller airfoil cousins: dihedral, camber, taper, etc.

The Bell X-1 was the first aircraft to travel faster than the speed of sound. The design of the horizontal stabilizer, with a hinged elevator, resulted in loss of elevator effectiveness due to the shock wave. Thereafter, supersonic jets were designed without elevators but with stabilators, a fully moveable stabilizer.

Here is the tail of the Gloster NF-11 (TT-20)–Britain’s first operational jet aircraft and the only Allied jet to see action in World War II. The design team decided to split the rudder above and below the vertical stab.

The X-15 tail was designed for hypersonic flight. The horizontal stabilator has significant anhedral, and the vertical stabilizer has both upper and (less common) lower portions much like an arrow’s feathers.

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T-6A Texan II – Airplanes by Design

August 24, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

You’ve already seen a few pictures of the Texan II, but I thought I would feature them all in one column with a few key stats about the airplane, since this is what I am flying right now.

Here’s the view from the aft cockpit, where the instructor pilot sits–this is what I am getting trained to do.

This is the view of a T-6 in formation, a great photo in which to see the many characteristics of the aircraft.

The airplane was sold to the US Air Force by Raytheon-owned Beechcraft, but now Hawker owns Beechcraft.

It’s top speed is over 300 knots, and it can reach an altitude of 35,000 feet. The powerplant is the PT-6A turboprop engine with a Hartzell, four-bladed variable-pitch, constant speed prop spinning at 2000 RPM.

It is capable of +7.0 and -3.5 g’s and is fully aerobatic.

I cannot even begin to describe how much this little airplane gets jerked around by the torque and P-factor from the massive prop and powerful engine.

Another unique, and somewhat troubling, design characteristic is the exploding canopy. There is a flexible linear shaped charge running down the centerline of the canopy in the front and in a diamond pattern over the rear-cockpit ejection seat. When the ejection handles are pulled, the charge shatters that part of the canopy instead of jettisoning it. You can see these in if you look carefully at the photos above.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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Convair T-29 Flying Classroom – Airplanes by Design

August 17, 2011 in Airplane with 2 Comments

I can’t think of a more boring name than “Flying Classroom.” But the T-43 of last week was just such an airplane, a classroom for navigators. Similarly, the Convair T-29 was a Flying Classroom for navigators as well. So how does this aircraft compare to the Boeing 737 / T-43?

Why do jet engines so often appear mounted on the bottom of the wing? I understand that because of the propeller, the nacelle for piston and turboprop engines is more likely to be mounted higher. But why the bottom of the wing for the jet nacelle?

One contrast of the two fuselages is the taper shown here at the aft end of the empennage. The top of the 737 is straight and the bottom of the empennage tapers up to the tail. Here, the top and bottom of the empennage taper to a termination in the middle. This also results is far more tail surface area between the mid-line of the fuselage and the top. This tail design is not uncommon for this era. I have been quite curious why the leading edge of the vertical stabilizer extends so far forward.

Notice the fuselage at the wing root. There is a great degree of similarity to the 737 here.

The dual exhaust of engines is curious.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos.

The Air Force museum did not have a fact sheet, but I found some interesting links on the Convair T-29: including a blog and wikipedia.

Boeing T-43 Bobcat – Airplanes by Design

August 10, 2011 in Airplane with 0 Comments

A 737 by any other name is still a 737, and this one has been flown by the Air Force for years. The 737 is still Boeing’s best seller and extremely popular throughout the world.

Boeing has utilized the space in the aft empennage for the auxiliary power unit for years.

The basic shape of the fuselage is one of the cleanest, most efficient designs I have seen. This one might appear shorter than normal. The 737 has several variants, of which this is an early, shorter one. Even the attachment of the wing to the fuselage is efficient.

The nose has a distinct look that many will recognize. It hearkens to both the older 707 and is simultaneously suggestive of some of the newer designs.

The Air Force used the T-43 as a trainer aircraft for navigators.

This isn’t about the tail, but in relation to the proportions of the fuselage, the 737 tail has always seemed extremely large to me.

Click here to read more about this airplane.

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