The tandem-wing concept applied to modern
transports
Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment,
T HE first tandem-wing aircraft I saw appeared in an
early 1960s edition of the boys comic—Lion. I dis-
missed it as a figment of the artist's imagination, but later
came across the self-same aircraft in War Planes of World
War 2—Fighters—Volume 2 by W. Green. From then on
I have been collecting information on tandem-wing aircraft.
Some eight years later what started as an interest in air-
craft took an academic turn when I did a design study of
a tandem-wing aircraft as part of an MSc.
The first tandem-wing aircraft on record was made by
a Venetian called Tito Livio Burattini and was flown in
Poland in 1664. The machine had four pairs of wings in
tandem and was said to have lifted a cat! Over the years
numerous designs were constructed and flown with varying
degrees of success. Since tandem-wing designs are in-
variably greeted with howls of derision I will briefly list
some of the more notable successes. In 1913 Stefan
Drzewiecki flew an unstallable "natural stability" aircraft.
In 1922 the French Peyret glider won the Itford gliding
competition. The 1930s saw the advent of the "Pour-du-
Ciel" which are flying today in a modified form. In 1941
the Arsenal Delanne two-seater fighter was flown for the
first time. This aircraft really demonstrated one of the
major advantages of the tandem-wing layout—namely the
wide speed range. In fact the maximum speed was 7-5
times greater than the landing speed. Also successfully test
flown during the war years were the Miles Libellula series
of designs which were tested at RAE. Modern tandem-wing
aircraft include such types as the Lockspeiser Land
Development Aircraft, and the Saab AJ37 Viggen. At
the time of writing future tandem-wing aircraft included
such projects as the North American V/STOL fighter/
attack aircraft and a Dornier lightweight air superiority
aircraft.
Having given a brief synopsis of the history of tandem-
wing aircraft I would now like to define the tandem-wing
layout as used in the design study and also list briefly the
advantages and disadvantages. The layout is defined as
follows. The position of the centre of gravity lies between
the quarter chord point of the rear wing and the quarter
chord point of the forward wing (i.e., approximate centres
of lift). Secondly all lift, including trim lift, is in the
positive (upwards) sense. Finally, the tandem-wing layout
being defined by the presence of a gap (in the accepted
biplane sense); and a stagger considerably greater than
the chord.
The relative advantages and disadvantages of the layout
are as follows. Considering the advantages; firstly all the lift
is an upwards sense which has a two-fold benefit. The
high lift qualities reduce landing and take-off requirements,
and also the fuselage bending moments are reduced which
Aeronautical Journal November 1974 Bottomley
J. W. BOTTOMLEY
Boscombe Down
produces a lighter fuselage structure. Secondly there is a
wide centre of gravity range allowed for by redistribution
of the lift between the two sets of wings. Finally there are
safer slow speed characteristics; that is in the stall, the
foreplane stalls first and the aircraft pitches nose down
out of the stall.
The major disadvantage of the layout is that the main
plane cannot work at high lift coefficients. Also the diff-
erent handling characteristics would require modifications
to BCAR (British Civil Airworthiness Requirements). The
wide centre of gravity could cause handling problems and
the optimum undercarriage position is difficult to ascertain.
Finally aerodynamicists have suggested that the layout
could suffer from inadequate yaw control and possible
longitudinal instability; although the designer of the Miles
M39B Libellula stated that neither of these maladies existed
on ihat aircraft.
Having established the advantages and disadvantages
of the tandem-wing layout I would now like to briefly state
the method used to tackle the feasibility study. The thesis
was split into two parts. The first part was concerned with
the historical survey of tandem-wing projects to date; a
critical appraisal of a number of designs; and a complete
bibliography. Part 2 was concerned with aerodynamic
interference; aerodynamic design; performance estimates;
loading actions, fuselage layout and structure; wing layout
and structure; undercarriage layout and engine installation.
As a direct result of work done in Part One the design
illustrated in Fig. 1 was chosen for further work.
The reasons for choosing that particular design were as
follows. Firstly it was felt that this configuration offered
the best compromise aerodynamically, and also most of ths
very limited information available was concerned with that
layout. Secondly it was felt to offer the greatest number
of advantages coupled with the least number of dis-
advantages. Structurally there would appear to be gains—
although these were evaluated in due course. The two
main variables were engine position and undercarriage
layout.
Briefly the overall concept of the Libellula design was
for an aircraft to meet the same specification as the BAC
One-Eleven Series 500 or Boeing 737-100.1 would now like
to consider each of the main appendices in turn. Quite
obviously, a great deal of the detail has been omi'.ted and
only the broader concepts are discussed here. Firs ly con-
sidering the aerodynamic interference; having decided
upon the basic configuration of the aircraft, an extensive
search was made to find out how much research had been
done on the aerodynamic aspects of tandem-wings. How-
ever, this was found to be minimal but the following
conclusions were drawn. The relationships between CL
523
 and CD; CL and a "(angle of incidence) were independent
of eg position. However, the CL vs CM (pitching moment)
curves were very sensitive to eg position. As expected the
lift/drag ratio was markedly affected by ground effect.
The downwash from the foreplane lowered the effective
incidence of the mainplane—also both wings should be
set at the same geometric incidence for gentler stalling
characteristics. Finally as large a separation of the wings
(fore and aft) as possible to produce a much more pro-
gressive stall of the foreplane.
Secondly the basic aerodynamic design—this is best
illustrated by noting the actual parameters and dimensions
decided upon. But it can be summarised thus. The handling
requirements at both high and low Mach numbers must
be met. The drag rise due to boundary layer separation
arising from the effects of shock stalling must be avoided.
There must also be as near elliptical load distribution as
possible for low induced drag. Finally gentle stall charac-
teristics allied with a high useable Ch max.
The only areas of the performance envelope considered
were those of special interest to the tandem-wing design.
These were drag estimation, take-off and landing per-
formance, range, and method of pitch control. The drag
was found to be higher than anticipated—probably due to
the increased wing area over a conventional aircraft. As a
direct result the cruising speed was reduced to a value of
Figure 7. General arrangement of the Libellula tandem-winc
aircraft.
524
M = 0-70 (from 0-75). The BCAR factored take-off and
landing distances with the eg at the optimum position
were 4230 ft (compared with 7300 ft for a BAC One-
Eleven Series 500) and 3620 ft (4720 ft) respectively. From
estimates of cruise performance it was found that the
permissible eg travel was 18-3 ft! A quirk of the tandem-
wing layout was that it was necessary to reduce the
cruising speed as the eg moved forward. The range with
25% reserves was found to be 940 nm—surprisingly it
was independent of eg position. Finally pitch control was
by using the slotted trailing edge flaps of the foreplane
as elevators.
Since the proposed tandem-wing aircraft was designed
as a passenger transport it was obvious that the fuselage
layout should be to a large extent dictated by the passen-
gers and their requirements. The aircraft was originally
conceived to carry 100 passengers over a range of 750-
1000 nm. The optimum seat layout in terms of seat pitch
and number of seats per row was:
20 rows of five seats at 34 inch pitch = 1 0 0 passengers.
An alternative high density seating arrangement for use
on shorter range routes could be:
22 rows of five seats at 31 inch pitch = 110 passengers.
The freight capacity was 573 cu ft or 5731 lb—ie, 29%
of the passenger weight. This compared favourably with
the BAC One-Eleven Series 500 which carries 21 % of the
pasenger weight as freight. It was decided to carry out
some preliminary design work on the foreplane since it
represented a departure from the conventional aircraft
components. The foreplane was of a conventional struc-
tural layout with two spars, full span high lift devices on
the leading edge ("droop snoot"), and tra ling edge (single
slotted flaps). The trailing edge flaps continue under the
fuselage for maximum efficiency. The space between the
front spar and the leading edge "droop snoot" was taken
up with anti-icing ducting. The undercarriage was located
on the rear spar. The mainplane was considered to be a
typical medium/short haul transport wing. It was similar
to the foreplane but with compound taper and sweepback
with Kucheman tips to improve the lift distribution. The
main fuel tanks in the mainplane have a capacity of 2500
gallons.
Finally the undercarriage layout and engine installa-
tion. Three undercarriage systems were considered based
on a conventional tricycle system. A tandem bogie system
(as on the Harrier) was also looked at; but rejected
because of difficulties with approach and touchdown. The
nose leg retracted into the foreplane, and the main gear
into blisters on the fuselage. The actual main gear was of
the twin-wheeled single-sided bogie layout, which was
chosen to provide the best slush clearing properties and
safety in the event of a blow-out.
The optimum engine position was considered to be on
the mainplane, one third of the semi-span from the root.
This gave the best trade-off between cabin noise and
asymmetric problems. However, the vortex sheet from the
foreplane would have caused severe intake problems, and
therefore the engines were mounted either side of the fin.
That layout gave good accessibility for maintenance, good
noise shielding and minimal asymmetric effects in the
event of an engine failure.
Space prevents discussion of the weight breakdown,
except to say that the Libellula* equivalent considered
here was no heavier than the BAC One-Eleven Series 500.
* "Libellula" is the generic name of the family of insects
otherwise know as Dragonflies. These insects have two pairs
of wings in tandem to cater for the variations in eg position
caused by the long digestive and excretive tract.
Bottomley Aeronautical Journal November 1974