TIE AERODYNAMIC DESIGN OF SALLPLANE TAIL ASSEMBLIES Professor E, Eugene Larrabee Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Presented at the XV OSTIV Congress Rayshal ABSTRACT. The acrodynunic design of a sailplane is dominated by its high aspect ratio unswept wing, which by itself is inherently unstable and uncontrollable in pitch and yaw. A tail assembly of minimum drag and weight must be provided which will permit the pilot to regu- late the wing angles of attack and sideslip in normal Flight, to overcome towline moments during Launch, and to insure recovery from spins. Aerodynamic constraints upon stabi- lity und control are examined to determine minimum control su; size, and a simple wethod, based on biplane theory, is presented for ostimat ion of the vortex drag penalty for tailplane trimming loads. It is concluded that small drag savings can be made with mod- est weight penalties by adopting longer tail woment urns and higher control surface aspect ratios. 1. Introduct The design of a sailplane is doninated by the aerodynamic characteristics of its wing. The minimum vortex drag of the wing is given by Munk's well-known formula for ellip- tic span loading, a) Yortex but the rest of the drag is due to boundary layer friction and disturbance of the pot tial flow pressure pattern about the airframe by growth of the boundary layer displacement thickness in the downstream direction, Mini- mization of the total airframe drag requires rfoil sections and fuselage shapes that Will tend to promote laminar boundary layers and that will minimize the skin area in con- tact with the external flow, at the same time avoiding separation. ‘These ‘requirements have led to the development of very high aspect Finland, 1976 ratio unswept wings which, by themselves, are not only unstable, but also uncontrollabie in pitch and yaw. lor this reason it is neces- y to provide a tail assembly aft of the wing which will provide adequate levels of stability and control with minimum additional drag and weight. This paper examines some critical flight situations to determine minimum acceptable tail surface sizes and considers tail gcomet- ries which tend to reduce drag and improve stability. It will be shown that Lateral con- trol in circling flight tends to establish the vertical tail moment arm, and that the m drag penalties for a downloaded hori tal tail with the same moment arm as the ve tical tail are so smill as to make alterna tive solutions, c.g., sweptback "lying" wings with clevons,* or forward canard surfaces, Seem unattractive by comparison. ‘Trim Drag Calculation Using Munk's Stuyger Theore SSAUTEE us bepin by attacking the “canard” that trimming with an uploaded foreplane is inherently better, an intuitive idea of the Wright brothers which even they abandoned in 1911. We do so by considering the wing- tailplane (or wing-foreplane) combination to be a heavily staggered biplane of very small gap, and calculate its drug with the help of Munk's Stagger Theorem, Fig. 1 (Ref. 1), which states that the induced drag of a multiplane is unaffected by the longitudinal position of its lifting elements so long as the element/ element lift ratios and gap/span ratios are preserved. Prandtl (Ref. 2) saw that this would permit the mininun vortex drag of a bi- plane to be written in the form *See Appendix A for an estimate of the ii duced drug component of the trim drag for a "flying" wing.Tse inded sy 013 mulipone isumattat ty fe atager of indirsus! cements 30 long a6 He element flonan? LE? osbos 2nd gop /opun tas are spethd, Fo | Mona's Srasoes Bisons "vortex @ where L1 and by are the Lift and span of ele pent (1) ta sid b2 are the [itt ajd spun of element (2), and q@= 1/2» V2. Lge/bg? is proportional to the self-induced drag of cle- tment (2), and 20(L}/b1) (1.2/b2) is the eross induced drag of element (1) due to the flow ahout ‘clement (2) plus the cross induced drag of element (2) due to the Flow about clement ().” Prandtl set PohIhausen the task of culating the interference coefficient, «), the case of an unstaggered biplane with arbit- y span rutios und yap to average span ra- tios, assuming that both elements are cl lipti- for cally loaded, und that the downwash at one element is appropriate to elliptic loading on the other. For an unstaggered biplane the cross induced drags of the two elements arc equal, hence the fuctor 2 in the formula; but for a staggered biplane the total cross in- duced dra is unchanged, that of the forward element being reduced by the upwash ahead of the aft element, and that of the aft element being inercased an equal amount by the down- wash behind the forward elenent. Poh lhausen's values of o are presented in Fig. 2. It should be noted that o becones equal ‘to b/by for b2 < by as the gap ap- proaches zero, corresponding to the aft wing being close to the wake of the forward wing, as might be the case for a wing-tail, or a foreplane-wing combination. Fig. 3 presents @ comparison of the minimum vortex drag of two wing-trining plane combinations, A. 4 downloaded t which ming surface for Fi6.2 Pranott- Porcwausen Brrane Inouceo Daas festa 4 & farm Nett mm be bad Le kire), bk Zrktes) , Lyneek trhhy ware 0 —o cookie a Lule, i 2-8 [Behe S| Fe.3 Inouceo Dens Revsay roe Tei wir Downwoao og Uoad Lp = Lb (+e), by =-eb,o = b2/by an uplouded trimming surface for which Ly = L (= 8), ly = 8b, 0 = bg/y Substitution into Eq. 2 yields the identical results 2 205 and, 2 2 lose 2 (Ase) (-e) | Ce) D, foe ooo co cy 2 ang [2 3 - »-| (3a)2 as , 2 im Poa som (3b) showing that the penalty for carrying a por. tion of the total lift on a surface of reduced span is independent of the sign of the addi- tional loud for a "biplane" of zero gap, a result reluted to Glauert's harmonic analysis of the lifting line problem in which the to- tul Lift is entirely due to the first har- monte, but all harnonics contribute to the vortex dra A study of Eqs. 3a and 3b shows that to receive the full favorable effect of the nega- tive cross-induced drag of an uploaded wing- downloaded tail combination, it is necessary for the effective gap to approach zero; on the other hand, the unfavorable effect of the positive cross induced drap of an uplowded -uploaded foreplane (or tailplane) com bhinar ion ean be reduced by inereusing the gup to average span ratio. Two recent digital computer bused finite element models of air- craft acrodynamics have confirmed these ideas: Goldhuaner (Ref. 3) has indirectly verified Pohihausen's values of o by calculating the reduction of induced drag with increasing gap on an unstaggered biplane having identical Wings of elliptic planform, and Tulinius (Ref. 4) has culculated the reduction in trim drag for a canard uirfrane due to increasing the foreplane span and the vertical spacing be- tween the foreplane and wing surfaces.* Lg. 2 can be rewritten in a form suitable for calculating the mininum induced drag of a Wing-tailplane comb inat ion c 2 4 tae Vortex —¥(by’/Sy) Minimum Se where the quintities in the square braces are Seen to correspond to tail drag coefficients bused on tail area, To the extent that o equals by/by, the Caverable cross induced drag of a downlouded tailplane ts unaffected by in- creasing the tail span, but the self induced drag of the tailplane is reduced, leading to lower induced drag penalties for trinming. Fig. 4 summarizes the results of caleu- lations made to compare the tail drag and stability of a typical 15 m span sailplane which might alternatively be fitted with tail- planes having aspect ratios of 3, 6, and 9, the tuil area being constant. It is seen that the \ Blan o\"4. a0 ar ORO (Ocmr Gio A. Exr0cror Taaseane Aspss Rares ow Srannsry Ano Deas aspect ratio 3 horizontal tail has un eaces~ sive additional inducod drag penalty, parti- cularly at low aircraft lift cocfficients where appreciable tail load must be carried for trim. All tailplane aspect ratios give about the sane drag at"high airframe 1ift co- efficients where the tail load is smaller, but the reduced induced drag of the high as- pect ratio tails tends to be offset by the un- favorable effect of the tailplane chord Reynolds nunber which acts to increase the profile dray ‘At constant tail volume the high tail- plane aspect ratios give a notable increase fn static stability, which tends to offset the loss of perceptible aerodynamic control forces with narrow chord tailplanes. The as- ‘After this paper was given at NASA Langley, McLaughlin (NASA Technical Note D-8391, May 197) made a comprehensive study of trim drag for canard and conventional airframes by the method discussed here which showed the superiority of the doxnloaded aft tail with various practical constraints and also showed good agreement with Tullinus' ela- borate vortex lattice theory.pect rutiv 9 tailplane, for example, would have a chord of only 333 mm for a span of 3 fm, und might well be constructed Like a sec~ tion of helicopter rotor blade, pivoted about its quarter chord and mass balanced through- out its length. Such a tailplane would un- doubtedly require a centering spring which might be biased for longitudinal force trim together with a control linkage bobweight to insure "y" feel. To sum up this study of tail drag includ- x the effects of trim drag, it would appear that the additional dray of downloaded ate tailplines of normal size is rather small, amounting to something like 20-30% of the pro- file drag of the wing. There is no real ad- vantage in trimming with an uploud. Sone small gains are available at high speeds and low 1ift coefficients for downlouded tail- planes of high aspect ratio mounted low so as fo be close to the wing wake at low and mode~ Fate angles of attack, ie., a high wing, low tail configuration. ads_in Turn Reversals as a ge + the tail moment arm of a Sailplane is set by lateral stability and control considerations. One of these, which is simple to calculate, is the vertical tail load needed ‘to reverse & coordinated turn, Fig. 5 (Refs. 5 and 6). Since the air- Fa Veron. Tes lates Resons 4 Ben Revver. craft Z axis component of the rate of tur is Proportional to the sine of the roll angle, it follows that during a tum reversal a yaw ing acceleration must be imparted to the aircraft which is proportional to the product of the cosine of the roll angle and the roll rate. As the aircraft rolls through wings level at constant ungular velocity, the lift vectors are rotated forward on the down going wing and aft on the upgoing wing through the local helix angle, giving rise to an adverse yawing moment due to rolling (which is indis- tinguishable from aileron drag). Assuming that the sum of the adverse yawing moments due to rolling and aileron drag is given by resolving a distorted elliptic lift distribu- tion onto the x¥ plane, it follows that the tail load required for turn reversal is given by b 3 4] Ww a] oe where (b/2V) (dg/dt) is the helix angle des- eribed by the rolling wing tip in space, and k, is the radius of gyration about the Z axis. Altematively Eq. 5 can be rewritten in tors of the aircraft lift coefficient Cy and the vertical tail lift coefficient CL, to give a convenient expression for the Y re- quired vertical tail volume coefficient which clearly shows that the minimum permiss- ible vertical tail volume is associated with turn reversals at high lift coefficients. or example, if full aileron deflection will muin- tain a helix angle of 0.1 radian, kz = b/4, and cy/cyy = 14/12 48 Wy af yee it er [: @ 4 (0.)) = 0.02917 and for y/b = 4/15, S/S = 0.10917 Eq. S reassures us that if the tail structure is large enough and strong enough to perform a coordinated turn reversal ut minimum speed, it is also strong enough to perform a turn reversal at high speed since the aircraft will always roll at the same helix angle if the ailerons can be fully deflected. It is clearly desirable to increase the vertical tail arm on the basis of this analy- sis since the same yawing moment tends to he required independent of the tail length, the inertia in ya« being doninated by the wing contribution, and the adverse acrodynumic yaw being entirely due to the wing. A longer tail arm allows the vertical tail size to be re- duced with benefits in surface weight and drag. From the structural standpoint it would be desirable to connect the vertical tail boom directly to the wing structure since this re-duces the length of the load path. A long vertical tail arm also favors spin recovery, and promotes resistance to spin entry. My teacher, Professor Koppon, always maintained that a vertical tail arm equal to the wing semispan was essential for satisfactory La eral control of propeller driven airpl rule which no current Sailplane mots. 4__Drug in Circling Flight Another reason for a longer vertical tail arm lies in the inherent tendency to- ward inward sideslip angle during circling flight, Fig. 6. ‘The rate of turn, i, is Wa "Nee 5 dj f7% ae tut) Bem) (om wr) * hla) -Ge-Gs] oe 4 & ae B A u Fis 6 Etrecr oF hewaco Sipesuip Wine Crcune primarily controlled by the roll angle, $. In the absence of ruddor deflection the air- craft tends to assume un inward sideslip angle (yaw string blown outward) so that the vertical tail, rather than the forward fuse- lage, is aligned with the flight path, The resulting inward sideslip angle of the wing operates on wing dihedral angle to offsct the overbanking moment due to the rate of tum, ind thereby reduces the aileron deflection that must be held against the turn. At the same time the sideslip of the wing-body co bination tends to produce outward sideforce and a certain amount of vortex drag. For every Sailplane there is an optimum sideslip angle that ought to be held during cireling f which is a function of roll angle, di- hedral ungle, and drag penities for aileron deflection, tudder deflection, and vortex druy due to sideforce. Drag due to rudder deflection und sideslip is reduced by in- creasing the depth of the fuselage. The author has estimated the circling drag of a hypothetical sailplane as a function of side- slip angle for one roll angle in Ref. S, The dray contributions are plotted as a function of Sideslip angle in Fig. 7. AG, = FE (6)00* (atom org) AG + (SASSY I0™ (rouse tng) “Ale, £7, a6)" (omen ang Tene % Cog PH3Ol Get2 po btly/m? 2508 ty $5 1ent bo fom d_Othe A brief examination of tail drag penal- tics has shown that increas i surface aspect ratio is desirable because of reduced trim drag penalties, both in pitch and yaw. A vertical tail volume requirement is more apt to be critical thun a horizontal tail volume requirement because of a simple need to over- cone the large inertia of the wing in yaw during turn reversals, and the absence of a similar requirement for pitching maneuvers. Inappropriately located tow hooks may very well determine the horizontal tail volume re~ quirement, but this sit always be improved in principle by location of the hook 0 that the extended toxlino axis passes through the center of gravity.* Somewhat longer tail arms appear to be desirable, particularly from the standpoint of lateral control and drag during circling flight. Longer tail moment arms have reduced torsional rigidity for a given bending strength and raise the possibility of flutter, particularly for T tail configurations. V tail configurations are perhaps more accep- table from the flutter standpoint, but they “Appendix B describes the dynamics of a typi- cal winch launch and provides some typical values for towline Loads.Probably should be constructed with dihedral angles of less than 909 between their upper surfaces to improve the yawing moment capa- bility. Both T tails and V tails (but not inverted V tails) lead to larger induced drag Penalties in high speed flight for the typi cal case of tailplane download for trim. The principal justification for T tails and V tails would appear to be minimization of tail surface damage in off airport landings. Fig. 8, finally, shows a pair of tail assemblies appropriate to 15 m sailplanes. In 08 15m Sucre Gunacerous wir low Ds Tu Assewtees either case the horizontal tailplane is an all moving surface constructed like a heli- copter rotor blade and pivoted on the quarter chord line with a hinge fitting external to the surface. Control feel and force trim is provided by springs. The horizontal tail Should be cambered to favor downloads. The vertical tail has a symmetrical sec- tion with a 45% chord rudder. It would be desirable to center its area on the torsional axis of the aft airfrane structure, an arrange- ment which leads to the pod and boom configu- ration shown. In the pod and boom configura tion, the boom is attached with structural bolts to the rectangular center section of a three piece wing, and the pod is separately bolted to the wing-tail boom assembly. The pod pylon is mainly designed to take landing gear sideloads, and might be bolted to the wing-tail boom assembly with bolts of limited Jateral strength. The pylon mounting permits the development of unbroken leading edge suc- tion at high lift coefficients, thereby im- proving the maximum lift coefficient and re- ducing airfrane drag at the lift coefficients for minimun sinking speeds. REFERENCES: Munk, M.: "Isoperinetrische Aufgaben Aus der Theorie des Fluges" dissertation, Goettingen 1919, 2. Prandtl, L.: "Der Induzierte Widerstand von Mehrdeckern", T.B. III Bd. S. 309; English translation available as NACA Technical Note 182, March 1924. 3. Goldhanmer, M.D.: "A Lifting Surface Theory for the Analysis of Non-Planar Lifting Surfaces", AIAA Paper 76-16, January 1976, 4. Tulinius, J.R, and Margason, R.J.: "Air- craft Design and Evaluation Methods", ATAA Paper 76-15, January 1976. 5. Larrabee, E.E.: "Lateral Control and Sailplane Design Considerations to Opti- mize Altitude Gain While Thermalling", AIAA Paper 74-1004, Septenber 1974. 6. Larrabee, E.E.: "Vertical Tail Size Needed for a Coordinated Turn Reversal, AIAA Jounal of Aircraft, Vol. 12, No. '8, pps. 687-688, APPENDIX A Estimation of the Trim Drag for a Sweptback “Flying Wing” Airframe The suepeback "Flying" wing airframe i a perennial weed in the garden SF applied aerodynamics (c.f, JK. Northrop's, 48-35. and X8-48; also various experinental’ sailplanes and research airplones by the llorton brothers in Goreany). The absence of vertical tail capable of providing strong yaving moments on the vorge of stall is the principal short. coming Of the type. It also has’a trim drag penalty with an easily calculated induced drag component The additional 11¢¢ due to an increase in angle of attack may bo assumed tobe. ap: proximately elliptic and to be centored longi Eudinally on the local quarter chord lines; the center of gravity location mist be slightly behind @ line joining the centroids of the half elliptic lift distributions. on the port and starboard wing halves at 42.48 of the semi span for aCy/%a to be negative, Now assume a combination of wing twist and/ or elovon deflection giving rise to the third harmonic of a Glauert Fourier series life distribution as shown in the figure, whichcan be used to trim wing section pitching moments and lift at high angles of attack. The third harmonic 1ift distribution produces an aerodynamic moment on cach wing half per- pendicular to the quarter chord Line which can be resolved into components parallel (Mx) and perpendicular (Hy) to the direction of flight. In this way a relation is found be- tween the pitching moment and the size of the third harmonic 202 Acq = (tan A) ( 8°)?(-0,188225 Ay) ‘This gives rise to an increase in induced drag, 3% ) CE) 3) Ap, = where A is the sweep angle of the quarter chord Lin For a typical case of My = 9.1 re- quired on a wing of uspect ratio b2/S = 20 and @ quarter chord sweep angle of f= 202, the third hurnonic coefficient As is calcula ted to be -0.00305 giving rise to an increuse of induced drag of AC, = 0.000628. This is to be compared with the typical induced drag incronents for a downloaded tail of about 0.0003 shown in Fig. 4 for the same pitching ronont coefficient. 7 Se Gimart tomonic Aged ss, 4 Weg spur F G~ ra ~SAyentne) j acs tay IE. Y=) Agsatnd) j en) Fe et My aPtndlnye) ; me fybiy | BS TF Mle +$p'8' [rua br) sin 386m) ey L Themtore ty = fpU'8 ton Alaneszsh) In generat D, = Spun bith S*81R, 1,0, rnd Mot We Bln = Can AVAN 0924) 46, = OAAYRIAY doce Daas Penatry for Tce wiry Taasr Ao Suite? APPENDIX B Towline Loads in Winch Launches In a winch Iaunch the satiplane is pulled into the air by a cable reeled onto a drun, The launch process is under mutual control of the glider pilot, who can regulate the sail- plane angle of attack and lift coefficient by means of elevator deflection, and the winch operator, who can control the cable tension by regulating the winch speed. The cable tension is limited by a length of reduced tensile strength cable near the sailplane, and by the power-speed characteristics of the winch engine-transmission combination, These rela- tions are summarized in Fig. 1. et) «D> mynd «Fook po?) pois) ol mgat Ton (001) Gnite seen? it owe vention) penne) - De fet 5 G26, 0S5, = 62600 epi D8 Ting oF Tole) (oth mn) CO. Marneasrca: Moves ar re Wien Launcy Process Viado Lenoch, in his M.1.T, Masters Thesis, An Acrodynumie Study of Horiaontal Tailplane Configurations and Sizing, (Sept 1976) programmed these equations for numer: cal integration on a small digital computer and obtained many representative solutions, fone of which is given in Fig. 2. 2 500 | foo 1500 in (9 Rercesavrimne Wincn Aurion SnesIn this launch the pilot is assumed to hold the saiiplane erimed at sasinun Tift Coefficient. “The sailplane accelerates ra- pily and pulls up at a steep angles After T'a7"seconts tho fight path is almost pore pendicular to the cable, and the winch opera- for mist sor the winch approcisbly to Tait the wing itt load to 2.0" times the Sailplane weight.) Thereateor nodoet winch speeds Keep the saliplano rising like-a Rive eith oppreci- tbe Line tension, "rou 40 0-80" seconde Into che" Launch the eable tension approsches its Lait valve of 600 da\ (approxinately 600 Kg "force" - "AS the trajectory, rounds ever the siliplane if allowed to decelerate te its Stalling speed in level flight and finally the pilot feleases the Line after 200 seconds, practically over the winch The raeio of cable tension to dynasie pressure tines wing afeay 1/48 has large Values both at the beginning of the tatnch and at the end. “The trinaing life coeffici- tnt that has to be supplied by the tail 1s provorcional to t/ag and the Yatio of the tow ook arm about the center of gravity to’ the GOK AE 4 conson compromise is 40 place the! Mok on the landing gear sup- port structure where it is near the canter Sf Pravity longitulinally but not vertically. nts nay le8d to-uncontrollapio stalling to- honte ay 1ift off with a careless winch opere- Tor, and it should be'a concern of the sal= plate designer to: give tho saiiplane pilot Gnough nose down pitching aonent authority te Vinit the saliplane Iife‘covfticient. to rea tonabie values’ at lift off, The preblen Ssuppears as soon as the sailplane becomes norsdl to the winch cable, soon afver lift Off. This thnochistory represents an extrone perforasnce winch to vith the espharis on Feining leitude quickly.” The trajectory in tis ctanple is cbviowsly not recomended for routine flying becaise safety considerstions, thy altitole and airspeed aarsins in the eves OF cable break, were not taken into account. tail volume,