Fundamentals of Flight Performance ‘The reader should observe, that Eqns (8.10) and (8.11) can also be obtained from Eqns (8.6) and (8.7) by simply substituting: T=0. Because the flight path angle, y, is negative as shown in Figure 8.3, itis useful to introduce: ye-y (8.12) With this construct and upon introducing the usual drag and lift coefficients Eqns (8.10) and (8.11) can be re-written as: CpaS = Wsiny (8.13) and CGS = Weos? (8.14) Observe, that there are five variables in these two equations: W, h (altitude through 9), a, V, and y Since (in the absence of thermals) equilibrium flight can only be maintained in descending flight, altitude will in fact vary. However, since the objective of any gliding flight is to descend as slowly as possible, altitude will not change rapidly. Therefore, selecting altitude, although mathematically speaking fictitious, is a reasonable approximation. By selecting weight and altitude, three variables remain, one of which must be selected. It is physically evident, that to stay aloft as Long as possible in a glider, the numerical value of RD should be minimized. To cover the longest track (distance) along the ground, the numerical mag- nitude of the flight path angle, 7 (glide angle), should be minimized. Both cases are important in the design of gliders and in the conduct of power-off flight in powered airplanes. ‘The effect of aerodynamic design on the glide angle, 7 , the rate-of-descent, RD, and air-speed, V, are discussed in Sub-section 8.2.2. 8.2.2. GLIDE ANGLE, RATE-OF-DESCENT AND SPEED An expression for the glide angle, 7 , can be recovered from Eqn (8.13) and (8.14) by division: j tany = & i (8.15) hy ‘The speed in the glide, V, can be solved from Eqn (8.9) as: (8.16) 336 Chapter 8Fundamentat of Flight Performance The reader is asked to show, by using Egn (8.14) that this can be written as: v= [escz Os (17) From Egn (8.15) it follows that the smallest glide angle (ie. the longest track along the ground) is obtained when flying at the maximum possible lift-to-drag ratio, C_/Cp . If the drag polar is assumed 10 be parabolic {See Eqn (5.1)} itis possible to show that the maximum lift- to-drag ratio, C_/Cp is: CL _1 fake (é).. “acy, em This maximum lift-to—drag ratio occurs at a lift coefficient given by: CL = ¥TACCD, (8.19) Therefore, design features which are conducive to shallow glides are: high aspect ratio and Jow zero-lift drag coefficient. For a given weight and altitude, Eqn (8.17) can be used to determine the speed at which flight should be conducted to achieve the condition reflected by Eqn (8.18). The reader is asked to show that this speed (for small ¥ ) is obtained from: v= /—__ (8.20) The rate-of—descent, RD, follows from: = Vsing = VO SS 8.21 D = Vsiny = VePcosy = s oes (8.21) Asa general rule, the angle ¥ will be sufficiently small* to use the approximation: cos? ~ 1.0 (8.22) ‘When this approximation is used in Egn (8.17), the speed in a "shallow” glide can be written as: Ve (8.23) The corresponding rate~of-descent (Eqn 8.2L) can be written as: * The reader should observe that even if the relatively large value of ¥ = 18° is chosen, the error in cos} will be only 5%, while the error in cos*/?7 will be only 7%. Chapter & 337Fundamentals of Flight Performance RD = Vsiny = V=2 = (8.24) From Eqn (8.24) it follows that the minimum rate-of-descent (ie. the longest time aloft) oc- curs when the flight is conducted at the maximum possible value of C3 /C3, ‘The maximum value of C2/C2, can be obtained by setting its derivative with respect to Cy, equal to zero. The reader should verify that for parabolic drag polars the results are: (CU/CBna = RS EAE Stee 8.25) and " . [inbC, 8.26) (tle Therefore, design features which are conducive to low descent rates are: high aspect ratio and low zero-lift drag coefficient. Clearly, the aerodynamic ratios C,/Cp and C3/C3, play a very important role in the perfor- mance of gliders. The same can be said about the glide performance of airplanes with power-off. Figure 8.4 shows a drag polar plot of a glider, with C, /Cp and C}/C}, superimposed as func- tions of the lift coefficient. For a given weight,W, wing area, S and altitude, h (this determines the density), by selecting a range of values for angle of attack, itis possible to compute: C, /Cp.C}/C3,, V and RD. The corre- sponding performance data are shown in Table 8.1. The glider selected for this example is a relatively poor one by modem standards. Its lowest flight path angles are high compared to those achievable with modern gliders. Trimmed lift-to-drag ratios of 40.0 to 50.0 have already been achieved, yielding descent angles as low as 1.2 degrees! Despite this, the reader is asked to verify that the approximations of Eqns (8.22) — (8.24) are quite good! The performance results of Table 8.1 are plotted in Figure 8.5. The reader is asked to check out the significance of the points labeled A, B and C in Figures 8.4 and 8.5. These very important points are discussed next. 338 Chapter 8« deg. 12 147 iW 1.46 9 1.36 7 1.23 5 1.08 3 0.90 1 0.70 -1 0.49 3 0.25 -4 0.12 W=300 kg Fundamental of Flight Performance S = 141m? b=15m A=16 0.08 0.12 0.16 16 24 32 400 600 800 ic Characteristics of a Glider > Cp —30 = 40 = O/Cp > cc, Table 8.1 Calculation of Performance Characteristics of a Glider op 0.0950 0.0865, 0.0675, 0.0535 0.0440 0.0350 0.0275 0.0220 0.0180 0.0160 CL/Cp 15.5 16.9 20.2 22.9 24.5 25.7 25.4 22.0 13.9 1S ci/c2, tany 352 0.0645 ais 0.6592 553 0.0495 641 0.0437 644 0.0408 595 0.0389 453 0.0394 225 0.0455 48 0.0719 68 0.1333 y deg, 37 34 28 25 23 2.2 23 2.6 4. 76 Vv m/sec 15.2 15.3 15.8 16.7 17.8 19.4 22.1 26.5 36.5 53.2 v RD km/hr m/sec 54.7 0.97 55.0 0.90 56.8 0.78 60.0 0.73 64.0 0.72 69.7 0.76 79.5 0.87 95.2 1.20 131.0 2.62 191.0 7.03 Chapter 8 339Fundamentals of Flight Performance ¥ RD 7 (deg) (m/sec) (kn/hy W=300 kg S = 14.1 m b=i5m 20 200s — Speed, V Source: Ref. 8.1 Glide angle, ¥ j- Rate-of-descent, RD eo ~ deg. Figure 8.5 Glider Performance as a Function of Angle of Attack Pojnt 4: Minimum glide path angle Point A in Figure 8.4 represents the point of maximum lift-to-drag ratio, CL/Cp. It may be seen from Eqn (8.15) that this corresponds to the lowest glide (or descent) angle. That this is indeed the case may also be seen from point A in Figure 8.5. Note that the descent angle minimum is a “weak” minimum, When flown at this lowest glide angle, the airplane will cover the longest distance along the ground (ground track), before contacting the ground. The minimum glide angle can be recovered from Eqns (8.15) and (8.18) as: c = 1 Do atYein = GH = 2 (8.27) (CL/CD) ax © ‘The maximum distance covered in a steady glide is found from: Rinne A ue Tanya, (8.28) where: h is the altitude at which the glide is commenced 340 Chapter 8Fundamental of Plight Performance ‘The speed at which this maximum performance glide (from a range covered viewpoint) must be flown can be determined with the help of Eqns (8.23) and (8.19) as: Vaso - 2W max glide range pS /mAcCp, The reader is asked to show, that the drag polar of Figure 8.4 can be approximated by aparabolic drag polar with A=15.6, e=0.82 and Cp, = 0.0150 . ‘The speed for best glide performance, using sea-level density data can then be computed from Eqn (8.29) as 20.9 m/sec. This agrees closely with the data of Table 8.1 which use the actual drag polar. (8.29) Modem gliders have maximum lift-to-drag ratios of around 45, When starting one mile high, they can cover a distance of 45 miles before contacting the ground. Note, that even single-engine propeller driven airplanes in a power-off condition, with a maximum lift-to-drag ratio of around 10 will be able to cover a distance of 10 miles before contacting the ground if the engine fails atone mile high, rate-of- Point B in Figure 8.4 represents the point where C} /Cj, is amaximum. Asseen from Eqn (8.24), the rate-of-descent, RD, is a minimum at this point. This may be verified by looking at Point B in Figure 8.5. As was the case with the descent angle, the rate-of-descent minimum is also a ”weak” minimum. ‘When flown at maximum Ci /C5,, the airplane will stay aloft the longest time before contacting the ground. ‘The minimum rate-of-descent can be recovered from Egns (8.24) and (8.25) as: RDy, = (WZ. fw10.67 [Co (8.30) nin SP(cca) Sp wAe y 3xAe : The maximum time aloft follows from: t = = —1___ (831) For the glider data in Table 8.1, using 5,000 ft as the starting altitude, the estimated maximum time aloft is roughly 18 minutes. However, this estimate uses the density of 5,000 ft in Eqn (8.31). This is not a correct way of performing this calculation because density increases with decreasing Chapter 8 441‘Fundamentals of Flight Performance altitude, The actual maximum time aloft will therefore be somewhat less. ‘The reader is asked in Problem 8.5 to determine a better estimate by accounting for the change in density with altitude. — Point Cin Figure 8.4 is the point of maximum lift coefficient. This point corresponds tothe mini- mum flight speed (i.¢, stall speed) as may be verified by looking at Point C in Figure 8.5. Again, another "weak” minimum is encountered. ‘The minimum flight speed may be recovered from Eqn (8.23) by setting the lift coefficient equat to the maximum lift coefficient: ree Ve = SC... (8.32) It may be seen from Eqn (8.32) that to achieve a low stall speed, the wing loading, W/S, should be low and/or the maximum liftcoefficient, Cy should be high. Table 8.2 shows typical maximum lift cocfficicnts for a range of airplanes with the flaps up and with the flaps retracted. Vy, Some comments on the practical meaning of stall speed are in order. The stall speed according to Eqn (8.32) is also referred to as the 1g-—stall-speed. In flight testing, the measured minimum ai speed is always lower than this Ig-stall-speed. The regulations of FAR 23 and 25 require that the flight determination of V, be done with a deceleration of no more than | knot per second: dV/dt = 1.0 knot/see (8.33) Figure 8.6 shows the difference between the stall speed as obtained from a stalling maneuver and the Ing stall speed us obtained from Eqn (8.32). Note that the in-flight minimum speed occurs sat a negative value of load-factor. In modern high performance airplanes it is possible, that the minimum speed is determined by control limitations. That can lead to minimum speeds which are higher than the 1-g stall speed, which corresponds to the maximum lift coefficient. This is an important issue because typical ap- proach and takeoff speeds are referred to the minimum speed by certain factors. Examples are the approach speed which is defined as 1.3 times the stall (or minimum) speed and the take-off speed which is defined as 1.2 times the stall (or minimum) speed. For purposes of preliminary design it is customary touse the I-g stall speed as defined by Eqn (8.32) as the minimum speed, unless control problems can be expected. In such cases, the minimum control speed must be established and used. 342 Chapter 8Fundamental of Flight Performance Table 8.2 Typical Values of Maximum Lift Coefficients for Airplanes Airplane type s A Nyy Wro (W/S)r0 Chan ft? deg. Ibs Ibs/ft? flaps — up flaps — down Transports Boeing 727-200 1,700, 69 32 185,000 109 0.95 2.5 Boeing 737-200 980 8B 5 116,000 118 ” 3.2 McDD DC-10 3,861 6.8 38 455,000 gs 2? 25 Beech 1900D 310-109 0 16,950 547 16 23 Boeing 777 4605 87 31.6 506,000 110 ” 29 SAAB 2000 450 11 0 29,000 44 17 25 Trainers Cessna 152 157 67 0 1,670 10.6 13 17 Piper Tomahawk 125 93 0 1,670 13.4 7 18 Gramm—Am. AA-1_ 101 6.0 0 1,600 15.8 16 L7 Pilatus PC-9 325 63 0 4,960 153 07 09 SIAEM S-211 136 56 155 6,063 44.7 ” 24 Gulfstr—Am. GA~7 184 14,0 3,800 20.7 12 15 Business Airplanes Learjet M36A, 253 5718 18,000 n ” 21 Dassault Falcon 20 440 64 30, 28,700 65 n” 27 Cessna 525 323 84. 0 14,100 44 ” 17 Piaggio P-180 172 123° 0 11,550, 67.2 1? 2.3 Pilatus BN2T 325 14 0 7,000 215 2.3 31 Fighters Northrop FSA 170 3.8 24 21,000 124 2.0 Dassault Mirage I-E375 19 61 30,000 80 10 Sukhoi 27B 667 35 40 49,600 144 19 FAMA IA 63 168 60 0 8,377 49.8 ” Gliders Egret is powered) Schweizer SGS-1-35 104 23.3 0 930 89 34 No flaps Fournier RF-9 194 16.6 0 1,642 85 17 No flaps Caproni A-21S 174 256 0 1,419 82 2 No flaps Grob Egrett 1 427 25 0 10,362 243 16 2.0 Chapter 8 33Fundamentals of Flight Performance Source: Ref. 8.2 leg flight: 4 = 0 eo nu S S IF < > wlF I-g . > ay = normal perturbed acceleration time (sec) Ve = equivalent airspeed Figure 8.6 Power—Off Stalling Maneuver for an F-27 Transport 8.2.3 SPEED POLAR OR HODOGRAPH ‘The truc airspeed, V , of an airplane in a glide has a horizontal and a vertical component. The vertical component was called the rate~of-descent, RD. A graph which relates the horizontal com- ponent of velocity to the rate-of-descent RD is referred to as a speed polar or hodograph. A con- ceptual hodograph is shown in Figure 8.7. Ifthe flight path angle, f is small (see footnote on page 337), the horizontal component of veloc- ity, Vj, = Vos] may be replaced (i.e. approximated) by: V. Its clear from Eqns (8.15) through ( 8.32) that there exist explicit mathematical relationships between a hodograph and the drag polar of an airplane, 344 Chapter 8