A good summary of the aerodynamic

characteristics of our aircraft is the drag polar. It is the locus of lift and drag
coefficients as angle
of attack is evolving. So, this is a CD as
a function of CL curve, which is a parabola just
turned by 90 degrees. Because, of course,
it is more natural to draw the lifts, CL, on the vertical axis and the drag,
CD, on the horizontal one. As you can see, as fortunately, drag coefficients are
far
smaller than lift coefficients. The drag axis is magnified
by a factor of 100. This gives us a precise and
easy-to-read drag polar. You can also notice that this is not,
of course, a perfect parabola. As for high angle of attack,
CL is limited to CLmax by stall, while drag keeps on increasing
due to flow separation. And on the lower part of the curve,
we observe the minimum drag coefficient, CD0, obtained here at zero lift. Although,
on a well-optimized airplane,
this minimum can occur for a non-null lift coefficient. It is very important to
note that
the shape of the whole aircraft drag polar is significantly different from
the one of a single airfoil in a 2D flow. This is mainly due to the induced lift,
of course, a typical 3D effect, as well as the extra drag brought
by the non-lifting surfaces, fuselage, antennas, landing gear, etc. So, drag polar
allows us to
directly visualize lift and drag, as the corresponding lift and
drag coefficients CL and CD are just multiplied by the same scaling
factor, which is the dynamic pressure and the reference area to obtain the actual
force applying on the airplane. We can see how lift and drag evolve
when angle of attack is changed. At low angle of attack, for example, we have a
significant drag and
a very small lift. The blue line shows us, directly, to which extent is the
aerodynamic
resultant is leaning backward. And, in fact,
the slope of this blue line is just CL/CD. The lift to drag ratio,
that we call finesse in French. So, to find the maximum lift to
drag ratio, we just have to find the angle of attack for
which the blue line has the highest slope. And, of course, this occurs when
it is tangent to the drag polar. In our case,
the best lift/drag ratio is obtained for an angle of attack of six degrees. Let us
see now what happens if we increase
the parasitic drag of our airplane CD0. This may result from adding antennas or
other appendices on the fuselage or collecting bugs on the leading gauge or
extending the landing gear or whatsoever. In that case, I just add an increased
delta CD to my former parasitic drag, and it results in the translation of
the whole drag polar to the right. This results, of course, in a reduction
of the maximum lift to drag ratio, as the slope of the tangent is reduced. But also
in a change of
the corresponding angle of attack. So, the maximum lift/drag ratio is
quite sensitive to parasitic drag. And when it is increased,
the corresponding angle of attack is also increased, and
goes closer to the stall angle of attack. This demonstrates, one more time,
that those values are completely disconnected from those of
the 2D airfoil drag polar. [SOUND]