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2. Earliest Aircraft
2.1 Wooden Biplanes
The earliest aircraft of all, of course, is the Wright Flyer (1903) Figure 2.1
The use of biplane main wings led to a lighter & stronger structure than
would result from using a single wing structure (monoplane), as would have
been suggested by observations of bird flight.
The rectangular frame shapes were held in place by two light diagonal
wires rather than one single heavy diagonal member.
Wire bracing was used to support all the tensile loads.
The compression loads were concentrated into a small number of compact
rods.
The materials used were the cheapest available at that time and also the
most easily worked. This included:
Wood for the vast majority of the structure - firstly bamboo then spruce.
Piano wire for bracing.
Cotton muslin fabric for skin covering.
This was the dominant design for many years (until the mid 30s) & such
designs are still occasionally used, for the likes of aerobatics & crop-sprayer
aircraft. The major structural advantages of the layout are high rigidity and
consequently good bending and torsional resistance. This layout is suitable
for aircraft with low wing loading (W/S) requirements (e.g. aerobatics types
with good low-speed manoeuvrability needs). The layout results in a very
light aircraft, typically only about 10% of the weight of an equivalent sized
modern metal-skinned aircraft!
The majority of WWI aircraft were based upon this configuration see Figure
2.2 for some typical examples.
Figure 2.2 Biplane fighter aircraft of WWI Breguet 14 & Sopwith Camel
(both 1917)
aircraft to use this design approach were those of Louis Bleriot, the first to
successfully undertake an aerial English Channel crossing (Figure 2.3).
The wing structure comprised two thin wooden spars with external wire
bracing to independently support lifting & landing tensile loads (Figure 2.4).
The fuselage structure incorporated a standard civil engineering Pratt truss
type of design, comprising 4 main longerons running down its length with
additional support from spacers, struts & cross-wire bracing (Figure 2.5).
the use of deeper spars, thus improving wing second moment of area values
(Figure 2.6) and thus the overall wing strength and stiffness. This
consequently removed the need for external wire bracing. Examples of such
aircraft include the Fokker D.VII (1918) and Fokker DR-1 (1917) (Figure 2.7).
Figure 2.10 Hawker Hurricane (1935) & Boeing P-26 Peashooter (1932)
Figure 3.4 Saab J-29 Tunnan (1948) & Boeing B-47 Stratojet (1947)
Figure 3.6 F-102 A Delta Dagger (1956) & B-58 Hustler (1959)
Although the rule still applies, the visible fuselage waisting is no longer
common; the same effect is now achieved much more subtlely by careful
positioning of aircraft components.
3.5.3 Thin Wings
Much thinner wings were needed as aircraft speeds continued to increase
during the 1950s and 60s, due to aerodynamic considerations (in order to
reduce the magnitude of the wave drag due to thickness component). An
example includes the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter (1956) with a cruise speed
in excess of Mach 2 and a wing t/c ratio of only 3.4%. The adoption of such
thin wing sections led to the common use of multi-cell & multi-spar wing
structures:
Figure 3.7 Lockheed F-104 Starfighter (1956) & A-5 Vigilante (1958)
3.5.4 Kinetic Heating
Ever-increasing aircraft speeds during the 1950s led to additional previously
un encountered problems in the form of large temperature gradients due to
kinetic (aerodynamic) heating. These effects can easily lead to significant
thermal stresses and expansion/contraction problems and are big design
considerations for supersonic aircraft, e.g. Concorde & B-58 Hustler, where
steady state temperatures of up to 128oC may result for Mach 2 cruise.
Design solutions include careful material selection (the increased use of hightemperature resistant steel, titanium, etc.) and the incorporation of cut-outs
to accommodate thermal expansion limits.