Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306

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Aerospace Science and Technology

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Wind-tunnel and CFD investigations of UAV landing gears and

turrets – Improvements in empirical drag estimation
Falk Götten a,b,∗ , Marc Havermann a , Carsten Braun a , Matthew Marino b , Cees Bil b
a
Department of Aerospace Engineering, FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences, Hohenstaufenallee 6, Aachen, 52064, Germany
b
School of Engineering, RMIT University, 264 Plenty Rd, Bundoora 3083, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper analyzes the drag characteristics of several landing gear and turret configurations that
Received 5 August 2020 are representative of unmanned aircraft tricycle landing gears and sensor turrets. A variety of these
Received in revised form 12 October 2020 components were constructed via 3D-printing and analyzed in a wind-tunnel measurement campaign.
Accepted 16 October 2020
Both turrets and landing gears were attached to a modular fuselage that supported both isolated
Available online 22 October 2020
Communicated by Cummings Russell
components and multiple components at a time. Selected cases were numerically investigated with a
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes approach that showed good accuracy when compared to wind-tunnel
Keywords: data. The drag of main gear struts could be significantly reduced via streamlining their cross-sectional
UAV shape and keeping load carrying capabilities similar. The attachment of wheels introduced interference
Landing gear effects that increased strut drag moderately but significantly increased wheel drag compared to isolated
Turret cases. Very similar behavior was identified for front landing gears. The drag of an electro-optical
Drag estimation and infrared sensor turret was found to be much higher than compared to available data of a clean
Wind-tunnel
hemisphere-cylinder combination. This turret drag was merely influenced by geometrical features like
CFD
sensor surfaces and the rotational mechanism. The new data of this study is used to develop simple drag
estimation recommendations for main and front landing gear struts and wheels as well as sensor turrets.
These recommendations take geometrical considerations and interference effects into account.
© 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
The relative parasitic drag of small-to-medium-sized fixed-wing
unmanned aircraft (UAVs) is usually higher than larger aircraft
categories like airliners or military transport aircraft [1]. This is
mainly due to their specific mission scenarios and their compa-
rably small size. Fixed-wing UAVs are often used on surveillance
and reconnaissance missions and therefore equipped with gyro-
stabilized electro-optical (EO/IR) sensor turrets. These turrets are
externally attached to the lower airframe and can produce a con-
siderable amount of drag. Most current fixed-wing surveillance and
reconnaissance UAVs are also equipped with non-streamlined and
fixed landing gears. Such landing gears can cause a substantial
amount of parasitic drag [2]. Retractable landing gears might not
result in any significant flight performance gains due to their in-
creased weight and add a considerable level of complexity to the
*
Corresponding author at: School of Engineering, RMIT University, 264 Plenty Rd,
Bundoora 3083, Australia.
E-mail addresses: goetten@fh-aachen.de (F. Götten), havermann@fh-aachen.de
(M. Havermann), c.braun@fh-aachen.de (C. Braun), matthew.marino@rmit.edu.au
(M. Marino), cees.bil@rmit.edu.au (C. Bil).
system [3]. Studies suggest that streamlining and fairing of UAV
landing gears can offer drag savings and performance gains [3,4].
Recent research shows an increased interest in aerodynamic
analyses of UAVs both in the context of aircraft design and para-
sitic drag estimation [5–8]. An accurate parasitic drag estimation in
UAV design is of utmost importance to provide reliable flight per-
formance predictions. Both sensor turrets and landing gears play
an outstanding role for UAVs, as they represent large external at-
tachments protruding from the airframe. In general, the empirical
drag estimation of bluff objects like landing gears and turrets re-
lies on experience with comparable designs for which drag data is
available. This technique does not directly account for the individ-
ual shape and aerodynamic behavior of the specific components,
which can result in significant errors in force approximation. The
level of accuracy is usually accepted in early aircraft design stages.
A substantial amount of drag data for large airliner landing gears
is available due to the high interest in landing gear noise reduc-
tion [9–12]. Such data is, however, not transferable to smaller UAVs
as their landing gear configurations are vastly different from large
airliners. Additionally, UAV landing gears operate at significantly
lower Reynolds numbers. Recently available literature for aircraft
and UAV design [13–17] refers directly (or indirectly via Hoerner

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2020.106306
1270-9638/© 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Nomenclature
A streamlined main gear strut
c circular front gear strut/chord
CD drag coefficient
CDf friction drag coefficient
C Dp pressure drag coefficient
Cp pressure coefficient
d diameter
h/d height-to-diameter ratio
L large main gear strut/wheel
m medium front gear strut/wheel
M medium main gear strut/wheel
r rectangular front gear strut
R rectangular main gear strut
Re Reynolds number
s small front gear strut/wheel
S small main gear strut/wheel
t thickness
S frontal frontal area
S ref . reference area
[18]) to a series of NACA investigations of aircraft landing gears be-
tween 1934 and 1940 ([19–22]) for determination of UAV or small
aircraft landing gear drag. This body of work investigated a vari-
ety of landing gear and wheel configurations that were modern
at that time. Only a few of the analyzed geometries are still used
today, and the applicability of this data on modern UAV landing
gears is questionable. However, a detailed literature study revealed
that this data is still widely used, and no other modern studies
concerning the drag of UAV landing gears could be identified. An
initial investigation by the authors [1] found that the landing gear
drag data provided by the set of NACA reports underestimated the
drag of UAV landing gears compared to a series of CFD studies by
up to 80%. Further methods to estimate landing gear drag include
using a variety of drag coefficients for simple geometries like rods,
elliptical struts and wing-like fairings. These are available in the
literature based on wind-tunnel results of simple geometries [23].
It is currently unclear if and to what extent these might be appli-
cable on UAV landing gears.
EO/IR sensor turrets for UAVs attracted much more attention
in recent times compared to UAV landing gears. Several studies
investigated both aerodynamic and aero-optic effects [24–29]. An
excellent overview of recent research is provided by Gordeyev and
Jumper [30]. However, most of these studies only investigated sim-
plified and idealized turret geometries consisting of hemisphere-
cylinder combinations. Actual EO/IR sensor geometries feature sev-
eral protruding surfaces for sensors and a joint rotational mech-
anism that allows near 360◦ field-of-view. Such specific features
influence a turret’s aerodynamic behavior and might significantly
increase its drag. Again, no aerodynamic data on actual EO/IR sen-
sor turret geometries for UAVs could be found in the literature.
The lack of reliable aerodynamic data for both UAV landing
gears and turrets poses a serious concern as it greatly increases
the uncertainty in an empiric parasitic drag estimation that is
necessary for any UAV design process. This publication, therefore,
presents a series of wind-tunnel studies and numerical computa-
tions of a variety of UAV landing gears and turrets. The geome-
tries are derived from an in-house database (see [31]) of over 100
fixed-wing UAVs between 20 and 1000 kg maximum take-off mass
and are representative for a wide variety of UAVs. Several differ-
ent front and main landing gear strut configurations are inves-
tigated that include both streamlined and non-streamlined parts.
The struts are investigated as single components and combined
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Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
x length coordinate
x non-attached front wheel
X non-attached main wheel
y length coordinate
EARSM Explicit Algebraic Reynolds Stress Model
EO/IR Electro-optical Infrared
exp. Experiment
FLG Front Landing Gear
IFF Interference Factor
IWT Industrial Wind Tunnel
MALE Medium Altitude Long Endurance
MLG Main Landing Gear
MTOM Maximum Take-off Mass
RANS Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes
SIMPLE Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equations
SST Shear Stress Transport
UAV Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
θ circumferential coordinate
with wheels of different sizes to analyze interference effects. Sev-
eral simplified turret geometries with varying height-to-diameter
ratio are investigated and compared to measurements of an actual
EO/IR turret geometry. The study focuses on the drag characteris-
tics of all individual components and their combination. It aims to
provide empirical drag estimation recommendations for UAV land-
ing gears and turrets and to showcase a series of CFD validation
cases. The presented data allows an improvement in the accuracy
of empirical drag estimation procedures in UAV and small aircraft
design.
2. Methodology
2.1. Wind-tunnel experiments
The experiments were conducted in the RMIT University Indus-
trial Wind-tunnel (IWT). The wind-tunnel is a closed-loop return
facility that operates under atmospheric conditions with a test sec-
tion size of 9 m × 3 m × 2 m (length × width × height). It is
powered by a 330 kW motor that drives a 6-bladed impeller and
can produce flow velocities up to 40 m/s. The tunnel’s clean mean
turbulence intensity is about 1.5% at the center of the test section,
where the model is located [32]. Previous analyses showed that the
turbulence intensity stayed rather constant throughout the length
of the test section. It merely decayed by about 0.3% from the test
section inlet to the outlet [33]. Dynamic pressure was measured
with an MKS differential pressure system that was attached to a
pitot-static tube located in the center of the test section. Further
information on the facility is provided in Refs. [32,34]. Turrets and
landing gears were attached to a modular dummy fuselage to ap-
proximate actual flight conditions. The fuselage was constructed
from three layers of foam material. It had a length of 1.67 m,
a height of 0.28 m, and was 0.24 m wide. The middle section
featured a constant rectangular cross-section with well-rounded
corners. Both nose and tail were streamlined (see Fig. 1a). No spe-
cific shape optimization was performed, as the fuselage is not the
primary geometry of interest in this study. The fuselage has three
modular attachment points that could support a front landing gear,
a turret, and the main landing gear. It could be equipped with ei-
ther one of these parts (Fig. 1b) or with all simultaneously (see
Fig. 1c). The attachment points on the fuselage were smoothly
covered when no part was attached to them. The landing gear ar-
rangement was carefully designed considering overturn angle, tip
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 1. Fuselage and turret geometries tested in RMIT’s Industrial Wind-tunnel.
back angle, and front landing gear loading according to guidelines
from Raymer [35].
The model was attached to the wind-tunnel wall via a round
aluminum sting in a horizontal and inverted position. This en-
sured that the landing gears and turrets are close to the tunnel’s
center section, where the smoothest flow can be expected. The
maximum blockage ratio was below 4% and regarded as negligible
[36]. No blocking corrections were applied thereafter. Forces and
moments around all axes were measured with a high-precision
digital six degree of freedom force-torque sensor from JR3. It al-
lowed measuring the configuration drag with a nominal accuracy
of 0.25% based on the maximum measuring range of 40 N [32]. The
force-torque sensor was calibrated using dedicated weights before
the measurements. This calibration was double-checked after fin-
ishing the campaign and showed that sensor drift was minimal
and did not need correction. Drag forces were the primary in-
terest of this study. The force-torque sensor was situated in the
center of the fuselage (cover visible in Fig. 1d). This configura-
tion dictates that the load-cell always measured the forces and
moments of the total installed system, excluding the attachment
sting. Landing gear or turret drag forces were, therefore, not mea-
sured directly but were calculated in a two-step approach: First,
measurements of the clean fuselage configurations without any at-
tachments were performed. Afterward, a landing gear or turret was
attached to the fuselage, and the measurement repeated. The land-
ing gear or turret drag was then calculated by subtracting the drag
of the clean fuselage configuration from the one with the com-
ponent attached. In such, individual component drag in this study
is explicitly treated as installed component drag, which might be
subject to component-fuselage interference effects. No significant
fuselage drag increase due to the changed pressure distribution
caused by the attachment of components could be noted in several
CFD studies. Several more cases were investigated that combined
different sets of front landing gears with main landing gears and
turrets. This allowed analyzing interference effects.
All measurements were performed under zero-degrees angle of
attack and five different velocities ranging from 21 m/s to 33 m/s
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Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
(fuselage length based Reynolds numbers: 2.35 × 106 – 3.54 × 106 ).
This range was chosen as a compromise between measurement ac-
curacy at low speeds, structural considerations, and the maximum
allowable tunnel velocity. It was used to validate that the measure-
ments were independent of Reynolds number or dynamic pressure
effects. All values presented here were taken from the measure-
ments at the highest flow velocity, as it is the most representative
one for the UAVs included in the in-house database. Landing gear
and turret drag are expected to change with the angle of attack
due to changes in the pressure distribution and separation charac-
teristics. This is neglected in conceptual drag estimation methods
[35] and therefore, not considered here. Further investigations are
necessary to analyze these effects.
Forces were measured for one minute after the tunnel velocity
had stabilized and averaged later on. Several tests were repeated
multiple times on different days and after several installations. The
maximum drag force deviations between those repeated tests were
in the order of 3.2% of the total drag force. The percentage uncer-
tainty increases for the individual component drag due to the force
subtraction procedure described above. The level of uncertainty is
indicated with error bars for the experimental data given in this
paper.
2.2. CFD analysis
Selected cases were numerically analyzed using the Reynolds-
averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) approach with the commercial
computational fluid dynamics software StarCCM+ v15.02. This soft-
ware is widely employed in industry and academia and has been
extensively validated for a variety of cases [37]. The authors have
used the same approach for a detailed aerodynamic validation
study of a simplified turret geometry in a previous investigation
[28]. It was found that the numerical method can represent both
lift, drag, surface pressure, and flow properties of such geometry
to a satisfactory degree. All computational grids were created with
a hybrid unstructured finite volume algorithm integrated into Star-
CCM+. The chosen algorithm is based on a cartesian cut-cell ap-
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 2. Computational domain, close-up view of mesh, and grid independence study for Turret 3.
proach that predominantly creates hexahedral cells, but also allows
for the creation of arbitrarily shaped cells. A dedicated prismatic
layer mesh was employed to discretize the boundary layer. The nu-
merical solution was second-order accurate in space, whereby an
upwind scheme was used to discretize convective fluxes. Diffusive
fluxes were approximated with central difference schemes.
The full unsteady RANS equations were solved with an implicit
unsteady SIMPLE (Semi-Implicit Method for Pressure Linked Equa-
tions) algorithm that was second-order accurate in time (see [38]).
The time step was first approximated based on Strouhal number
relationships for spheres and cylinders in the given Reynolds num-
ber regime [39]. The final simulations were all run with a time step
of 2.5 × 10−4 s. A further reduction of the time-step did not change
the results. After the simulations had stabilized, they were run for
at least one more second (4000 time-steps), which corresponds to
about 30-80 vortex oscillation periods of comparable spheres or
cylinders at the given Reynolds numbers. The aerodynamic coeffi-
cients of this study were later averaged over this period. The Shear
Stress Transport (SST) turbulence model [40] was used with an
Explicit Algebraic Reynolds Stress Model (EARSM) developed from
Ref. [41]. The turbulence model was validated multiple times and
has proven reliable in recent studies involving full-configuration
helicopter aerodynamics [42]. Such flows are largely affected by
unsteadiness and separation effects, which are challenging to cap-
ture with simulations.
The EARSM non-linear constitutive relation enhances the pre-
diction capabilities of turbulence anisotropy [43]. It is especially
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Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
suited for secondary flows that can occur in separated regions of
bluff bodies. Transition is not modeled, and the flow is assumed
to be fully turbulent. This is meaningful, as the 3D-printed land-
ing gear and turret components are not perfectly smooth, and the
wind-tunnel flow quality is unlikely to promote extensive lami-
nar flow (see also [34]). The complete wind-tunnel test section
was re-modeled (Fig. 2a - top), placing a velocity inlet boundary
condition at the test section inlet and a pressure outlet bound-
ary condition at its outlet. At the inlet condition, the flow velocity
and its direction were uniformly fixed and corresponded to the
wind-tunnel investigations at the highest flow velocity. The pres-
sure outlet condition was set to the ambient reference pressure,
while the velocity was extrapolated from the adjacent cells. Tur-
bulence variables were fixed at inlet and outlet using a turbulence
intensity of 1.5% and a turbulent viscosity ratio of unity [44]. The
non-physical decay of turbulent kinetic energy and specific dissi-
pation rate in the freestream was counteracted by using controlled
decay terms as described in Ref. [44].
The geometries used in the CFD simulations exactly corre-
sponded to the ones used in the wind-tunnel experiments, how-
ever, to reduce discretization effort, small screws that connected
wheels and struts were neglected. The surfaces were discretized
with predominantly quadratic cells of a size that varied depending
on the individual body geometry. The cell sizes on the surfaces are
small and ensured having at least 300 cells in the circumference
of cylindrical objects like turrets or wheels (see Fig. 2a-b). Local
surface refinements provided smaller cells, especially at edges or
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 3. Main landing gear configurations a-f are to scale.
small radii, which can be seen in Fig. 2b for the EO/IR turret. All
near-wall regions were discretized with a boundary layer mesh
consisting of 30 prismatic cell layers. The first cell height ensured
a y + on the order of 0.5-0.8 for all cases, and at least 10 cells dis-
cretized the viscous sublayer. Care was taken when ensuring that
the transition between boundary layer mesh and core mesh was
smooth, with cell sizes being very similar (see Fig. 2c). All regions
close to the bodies were highly refined with a specific focus on
the bodies’ wakes. The mesh was then gradually coarsened fur-
ther away from the bodies. The fuselage was discretized, ensuring
at least 180 cells in its circumference normal to the flow. The cell
density was locally increased in the vicinity of landing gears and
turrets to provide a fine resolution of interference effects.
The final meshes were derived by several grid independence
studies and have cell counts between 18 and 45 million depending
on the configuration. The results of one exemplary grid indepen-
dency study for a configuration with only the EO/IR turret (descrip-
tion see below) attached to the fuselage are shown in Fig. 2d. The
drag coefficients are normalized with the frontal area of the tur-
ret normal to the inflow. The drag of this turret does not change
anymore, using more than 20 million cells. Such grid studies were
repeated for cases with various landing gear and turret configura-
tions and are not presented here. The forces acting on the bodies
were determined by a local surface integration of pressure and
shear stresses acting on each of the surface cells. The accuracy
of the simulations is judged by comparing them to the respective
experiments. An error between CFD and experiment below 10% is
assumed to be reasonable, corresponding to the maximum individ-
ual component drag accuracy of the wind-tunnel experiments. This
is affected by measurement uncertainty, repeatability, and force
subtraction procedure.
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Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
2.3. Landing gear and turret design
2.3.1. Main landing gear
The main landing gear was designed to be representative of a
wide range of unmanned aircraft. Its general geometry was derived
from the data provided in an in-house UAV database. This database
contains geometry information and images of over 100 fixed-wing
UAVs between 20 kg and 1000 kg. A great majority of UAVs use
solid spring-type main landing gears in which the strut itself pro-
vides shock absorption and damping. Prominent UAVs featuring
this type of main landing gear are AAI’s RQ-7 Shadow, UAV Fac-
tory’s Penguin B, or IAI’s Searcher MK III. The configuration is also
frequently used for general aviation aircraft and captivates through
great simplicity and light-weight [35].
The main landing gear struts designed for this study were sep-
arated into two design principles. The first category used a rect-
angularly shaped cross-sectional profile, while the second one em-
ployed and airfoil type cross-section to streamline the entire strut.
The edges of the rectangular-shaped cross-section profile were
rounded to provide some minor flow guidance. A total number
of six different landing gear struts were designed that are shown
in Fig. 3a-f. Three of them featured a rectangular cross-sectional
shape, while three had a streamlined shape. The general geometry
of all rectangular and all streamlined struts was the same, and only
the struts’ cross-sections and their dimensions were varied. All
struts were attached to the fuselage via a connection mechanism
that provided a smooth fuselage-strut transition (visible in Fig. 3a-
f). The main landing gear configurations are numbered according
to the description in Fig. 3, whereby the first letter indicates which
wheels (S-Small, M-Medium, L-Large) are attached to the configu-
ration (X - no wheels). The second letter describes the strut size
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 4. Statistical evaluation of main landing gear strut size.
(Small – Medium – Large) and the last one if the strut has a rect-
angular (R) or a streamlined shape (airfoil - A). The sizes can be
compared in Fig. 3a-f, which shows the struts accordingly scaled.
The thicknesses and chord lengths of the rectangular-shaped struts
were chosen according to the geometric results of the in-house
UAV database. This database connects geometric measures of fixed-
wing UAVs to their maximum take-off mass (MTOM) and allows
performing regression analyses. Statistical data available for main
landing gear struts is shown in Fig. 4. Both thickness (Fig. 4a) and
chord length (Fig. 4b) increase with increasing maximum take-off
mass as would be expected due to higher load carrying require-
ments. Three exemplary take-off masses (50 kg – 250 kg – 800 kg)
were chosen to evaluate the thickness and chord length of main
landing gear struts. The maximum take-off masses were selected
to represent a small UAV, a medium-sized tactical UAV, and a large
MALE UAV.
The size limitations of the wind-tunnel only allowed half-scales
of the values found from the statistical evaluation. The smallest
main strut chord needed to be slightly increased due to structural
considerations of the half-scale model. Three different wheel sizes
that correspond to the strut configurations were determined in the
same way, while no diagrams are presented here. The wheels were
connected to the struts via plastic screws. The half-scale strut di-
mensions found in the UAV database were applied to the main
landing gear struts with a rectangular cross-section (Fig. 3a-c).
The streamlined main landing gear struts were designed for
the same load-carrying capabilities as their rectangular counter-
parts. This allows a direct analysis of the drag reduction achieved
by streamlining. In a simplified manner, the same load-carrying
capabilities can be assumed when both the rectangular-shaped
cross-section and the streamlined one have the same second mo-
ment of area in the main bending direction. The streamlined cross-
sectional shape was designed using a 30% thick NACA six-series
airfoil for the complete strut section. This choice allowed providing
a shape with the same second moment of area as the rectangular
section. While streamlining the main landing gear strut promises
significant drag reductions, it can add a considerable amount of
complexity and cost to the design. These disadvantages have to
be weighed against aerodynamic benefits for the individual UAV.
Such analyses are beyond the scope of this investigation. A com-
parison between the streamlined and rectangular cross-section for
the largest landing gear strut is shown in Fig. 3g. All main landing
gear parts were 3D printed, sanded, and coated with clear var-
nish.
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Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
2.3.2. Front landing gear
The front landing gear struts were designed to represent oleo-
pneumatic shock struts that are in widespread use for fixed-wing
UAVs and a variety of general aviation aircraft. Four different front
struts were designed, whereby two of them had a cylindrical cross-
sectional shape, and two had a rectangular one with rounded
edges. The general design of the struts is the same in all cases. The
struts’ thicknesses were again derived from a statistical evaluation
of front landing gears struts shown in Fig. 5a. The same exem-
plary UAV maximum take-off masses were chosen to determine
the strut thickness as for the main landing gear. The statistical data
scatter is large for the front landing gear strut thickness, and no
clear trend could be evaluated for maximum take-off masses be-
low 300 kg. It was, therefore, decided to take a representative strut
thickness for a large UAV at 800 kg MTOM and an average one for
UAVs below 400 kg MTOM. Again, this study uses half-scales. The
final strut designs are shown in Fig. 5b-e using the same nomen-
clature as for the main landing gears but with lowercase letters.
The last letter indicates if a strut has a rectangular (r) or cylin-
drical (c) cross-section. The rectangular struts’ thicknesses were
adjusted together with the diameters of the cylindrical struts to
provide both a similar cross-sectional area for normal forces and
comparable second moments of area for bending due to drag and
side forces. These requirements could not entirely be met, and the
final dimensions were chosen as a compromise. However, the de-
signs suggest that it is reasonable to assume that a UAV could be
fitted with either a rectangularly shaped front strut or its cylindri-
cal counterpart and withstand the same landing conditions. This
guarantees direct comparability of the drag characteristics of both
configurations.
Two wheel sizes were determined from a statistical evaluation
of UAV front landing gear wheels and are shown in Fig. 5f. A strut
section combined with a front-wheel is shown in Fig. 5g, whereby
the wheel is attached to the strut via plastic screws. The front
gears were constructed in the same way as the main landing gears.
2.3.3. Turret
Three different turret configurations were investigated in the
wind-tunnel study, see Fig. 6a. Turrets 1 and 2 were simplified and
idealized turret geometries that consisted of a hemisphere and a
cylindrical part. They had a diameter of 150 mm and 200 mm re-
spectively and were tested with three different height-to-diameter
ratios (h/d1 = 0.5; h/d2 = 0.6; h/d3 = 0.7). The turrets with the
smallest height-to-diameter ratio just consisted of a hemisphere.
The turrets’ sizes were determined by a statistical evaluation of
turret diameters found in the database and presented in Fig. 6b.
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306

Fig. 5. Statistical evaluation of front landing gear thickness and final gear designs, b-e are to scale.

Fig. 6. Turret configurations (to scale) and statistical evaluation of turret size.

Their dimensions are appropriate to both represent half-scales of
large UAV turrets and full-scales of smaller ones. Turret 3 was in-
spired as being representative of a variety of actual EO/IR turret
geometries with a diameter of 150 mm and a height-to-diameter
ratio of 1.0. It consisted of a spherical part that was designed
to provide pitch motion while a cylindrical part should provide
yaw motion. These parts were joined together without any flow-
through gap. The turret featured two circular and one rectangular
flat surfaces on the spherical part. These protuberances should rep-
resent different sensors of an actual gyro-stabilized EO/IR turret.
All turret geometries were 3D printed, sanded, and coated with
varnish.
3. Results and discussion
The following sections provide the results of the wind-tunnel
studies and the numerical computations, including a detailed dis-
cussion of the new findings. The wind-tunnel results are used to
both analyze turret and landing gear drag of UAVs and to provide
validation cases for the CFD studies. The comparisons are restricted
to drag forces, as no pressure probes were used on the model.
The results of the individual component analyses are presented
first, and further studies using multiple components simultane-
ously are presented afterwards. All drag values are shown as co-
efficients normalized with the dynamic pressure and a reference

7
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 7. Main landing gear strut drag.
area. For highlighting drag force differences due to differently sized
components, a constant reference area of 1 m2 is chosen accord-
ing to the drag area nomenclature of Hoerner [18]. To develop new
drag coefficients that can be used in empiric drag estimation pro-
cedures of turrets and landing gears, the drag coefficients have to
be referred to a specific area of the given component. This ref-
erence area depends on the type of component and its size. The
reference areas chosen for this approach are specifically described
when needed.
3.1. Main landing gear
3.1.1. Strut drag
The main landing gear strut drag from both the wind-tunnel
experiments and the CFD computations is shown in Fig. 7 for all
three streamlined and rectangular strut configurations. The drag
coefficients, which are shown in Fig. 7a are all normalized to a
reference area of 1 m2 . The drag of all configurations increases
with increasing overall strut size. However, this drag increase is
much more significant for the configurations featuring a rectan-
gular cross-sectional profile than for the ones with a streamlined
section. The drag of the largest main strut with a rectangular cross-
section is more than three times as high as for the smallest config-
uration. The drag of each streamlined strut configuration is lower
than its rectangularly shaped counterpart at approximately similar
load-carrying capabilities. For the smallest configuration, the drag
savings due to streamlining the struts are on the order of 28%,
while these savings significantly increase for the largest configura-
tion. The largest streamlined main gear strut has a drag that is 60%
lower than its rectangularly shaped counterpart. The drag savings
are on the order of what is also reported in Refs. [17,18].
Besides these results, Fig. 7a also shows the drag values found
in the corresponding CFD studies. All values align to the wind-
tunnel data with maximum deviations of 9% of strut drag. This
accuracy is within the data accuracy of the wind-tunnel experi-
ments.
In order to derive drag estimation recommendations from this
data, the strut drag found from the wind-tunnel experiments and
the CFD studies is normalized to the struts’ maximum frontal area.
This is a common approach for describing the drag coefficient of
objects like cylinders, spheres, or other bluff-body shapes [18]. The
frontal area takes only the strut itself into account and not the at-
tachment mechanism to the fuselage, as shown in Fig. 3a-f. The
8
Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
main struts’ drag coefficients normalized with this technique are
shown in Fig. 7b. The struts with a rectangularly shaped cross-
section have very similar drag coefficients that are between 0.492
and 0.524 depending on the strut size. This is an interesting find-
ing, as the differently sized struts feature different edge radii of
their rectangular cross-sections. This should provide some slightly
different flow guidance and affect their drag coefficient. However,
the study shows that this influence is not significant here. The data
indicate that a drag coefficient on the order of 0.5 (referred to
the frontal area of the strut) can approximate the drag of non-
streamlined main landing gear struts of UAVs. The identified drag
coefficients for the rectangularly shaped struts of this study are
slightly lower when compared to the values given by Çengel and
Cimbala [23] for rectangular rods with rounded edges.
The drag of the struts with a streamlined cross-sectional shape
is normalized to the strut maximum frontal area in the same way
as previously described for the rectangularly shaped struts. In em-
pirical drag estimation procedures, the drag of wing-like surfaces
is usually estimated by applying a skin friction coefficient on the
wetted area of the component. This assumes that the flow over the
component is mostly attached. The streamlined struts in this study
have a comparably thick airfoil and operate at Reynolds numbers
below 300,000. Therefore, significant separation effects can occur.
This prohibits an adequate use of the skin friction drag estima-
tion method. The data shown in Fig. 7b indicates that the small
and medium-sized struts have very similar drag coefficients around
0.3. However, the largest streamlined landing gear strut shows a
significantly reduced drag coefficient of about 0.19. These wind-
tunnel findings are supported by the results of the CFD studies.
Such abrupt drag reduction is a strong indication for a change in
flow separation behavior, which is very sensitive in this Reynolds
number regime. Further CFD studies revealed that both the small-
(X-S-A) and medium-sized (X-M-A) streamlined strut suffer early
flow separation at about 50% of their chord length. The flow sepa-
ration is clearly visible in the wall shear stress, and surface stream-
line contours on the outer part of the struts in Fig. 8. In contrast,
the large strut configuration (X-L-A) shows mostly attached flow,
which reduces its drag. Such flow separation behavior is usually
challenging to capture in numerical simulations. The good compa-
rability between experimental and numerical drag coefficient, in
combination with the separation behavior, shows that the chosen
numerical approach can handle such cases.
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 8. Wall shear stress of main landing gear strut from CFD analysis (sizes are to scale). (For interpretation of the colors in the figure(s), the reader is referred to the web
version of this article.)
As the streamlined struts of this study are half-scaled, Reynolds
numbers found for real-world applications are double as high con-
sidering the same freestream velocity. Higher Reynolds numbers
decrease flow separation tendencies and reduce strut drag. This
indicates that the largest strut configuration (X-L-A) is the most
representative one for actual UAVs. The aerodynamic behavior of
such a streamlined strut is, of course, influenced by the chosen
cross-sectional shape or airfoil. One driving factor of the parasitic
drag of streamlined sections is its thickness-to-chord ratio. Higher
thickness-to-chord ratios generally increase airfoil and therefore
strut drag, while lower ratios decrease parasitic drag. In such, the
results of this study might only be seen as exemplary for this
unique strut. However, it was shown that the chosen drag coeffi-
cient normalization approach is reasonable, and one might assume
that the determined coefficients can be extrapolated to other con-
figurations. It is, therefore, recommended to empirically estimate
streamlined main gear strut drag of UAVs with a drag coefficient
of about 0.2 for larger struts and 0.3 for smaller ones. These drag
coefficients are also in the range of data given by Çengel and Cim-
bala [23] for elliptically streamlined rods.
3.1.2. Wheel and complete main landing gear drag
The three differently sized wheel pairs (see Fig. 3h) were at-
tached to their corresponding strut configuration (Small – Medium
– Large) and the complete configurations analyzed in the wind-
tunnel and with the numerical approach. The drag results from
the wind-tunnel analysis of these full main gear configurations
are shown in Fig. 9a-b, together with the results of the iso-
lated strut cases for comparison. The nomenclature to identify the
components in Fig. 9 follows the description provided in Fig. 3.
Wheel drag significantly influences the total main landing gear
drag with an increasing tendency towards the larger configura-
tions. This is influenced by choice of the wheels’ sizes based on
the in-house database. The drag increase is even more severe, con-
sidering streamlined strut sections as their isolated struts have
smaller drag compared to their rectangularly shaped counterparts.
One could argue to analyze wheel drag by subtracting strut drag
from the total main landing gear drag. However, this does not ap-
propriately account for wheel-strut interference effects. The local
surface integrations in the CFD simulations, however, allow to ac-
curately separate wheel and strut drag. The analysis shows that
the attachment of wheels increases the drag of most struts only to
a small degree compared to their isolated drag values (Fig. 9a-b).
This allows determining a strut interference factor. The strut drag
increase is more severe for the largest streamlined strut. In the iso-
9
Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
lated case, this strut has low drag, as the flow stays attached over
most of its surface. However, the wheels now cause significant flow
disturbances that lead to much earlier separation, especially on the
outer parts of the strut. This effect is not as evident for all other
strut configurations as they feature early flow separation.
Wheel drag is usually estimated based on a drag coefficient
referred to the wheel maximum frontal area. Typical values for
isolated wheels found in the literature range from 0.18-0.23 [15,
17,35]. CFD analyses of isolated wheels used in this study con-
firm these drag coefficients. However, the drag coefficients of the
wheels attached to the struts of this study are much higher. They
reach up to 0.71, which is more than three times as high as their
isolated drag values. This is caused by strong interference effects
between wheels and struts that cause flow disturbances, pressure
changes, and early separation, especially on the inner side of the
wheels. The behavior is shown in the contour plot of the pres-
sure coefficient, and surface streamlines of the wall shear stress in
Fig. 9c. The flow on the outer part of the wheel is smooth, while
it is significantly affected by the presence of the strut on its in-
ner side. Wheel drag might be significantly reduced by fairing the
wheel with a streamlined cover. This is a common technique of-
ten employed by general aviation aircraft. Drag reductions of more
than 40% of isolated wheels have been reported [18]. Wheel fair-
ings were not investigated in the current study, and it is unclear
how they perform given the significant strut-wheel interference
effects found in this investigation. Further research is required
to analyze the effect of wheel fairings for typical UAV landing
gears.
To provide guidelines for empirically estimating the total main
landing gear drag of UAVs, Table 1 gives an overview of the drag
coefficients found in the current study. The drag coefficients are
normalized with the frontal area of the specific components. The
isolated struts’ drag coefficients should be increased to account
for wheel interference effects, whereby the majority of interfer-
ence factors is between 1.07 and 1.15. For cases where mainly
attached flow is expected for the isolated strut, a higher interfer-
ence factor is appropriate. Isolated wheel drag can be accurately
estimated with the guidelines provided in the literature. However,
large interference factors must be used to account for wheel-strut
interference effects that range from 2.1 up to 3.3. In this study,
the wheels are directly attached to the struts without any gap
that would realistically be necessary to provide the wheels with
rotational freedom. The CFD analysis showed that wheel-strut in-
terference effects reduce when there is a certain gap between strut
and wheel. The wheel interference factors presented in Table 1 are,
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306

Fig. 9. Main landing gear drag with struts and wheels.

Table 1 lar cross-sectional profile are below 5% for the small and medium
Drag coefficients and interference factors for main landing gear. configuration. The edge rounding of the rectangularly shaped struts
Main gear C D isolated strut CD Strut IFF Wheel IFF reduces their geometric differences to the circular-shaped cross-
size rectangular/ isolated rectangular/ rectangular/ sections, which might explain the similar drag values. Again, the
streamlined wheel streamlined streamlined
CFD simulations are close to the drag values found in the wind-
Small 0.524/0.304 0.213 1.14/1.15 2.58/3.25 tunnel and slightly underpredict strut drag in all cases. Neverthe-
Medium 0.509/0.307 0.234 1.07/1.07 2.57/2.10
less, the differences are below 8%, which is an acceptable accuracy
Large 0.493/0.187 0.215 1.15/1.51 3.30/2.93
for this study.
Front strut drag is normalized to the frontal area of the strut in
therefore, conservative. Interference effects further reduced when the same way as described for the main gear struts. The drag co-
the gap between strut and wheel was increased. Deriving a rela- efficients are presented in Fig. 10b. The normalization now shows
tionship between gap size and interference factor proved difficult that the rectangularly shaped struts have slightly larger drag co-
and dependent on the strut and wheel combination. A significant efficients than compared to their circular counterparts. The frontal
amount of further investigations would be necessary but are be- area normalization also achieves that both small and medium con-
yond the scope of this study. figurations have very comparable drag coefficients, which is nec-
essary to derive empirical drag estimation relationships. All drag
3.2. Front landing gear coefficients determined with this technique are between 0.801 and
0.923. It is, therefore, recommended to apply an averaged drag
3.2.1. Strut drag coefficient of 0.86 for empirically estimating front strut drag of
The front landing gear strut drag from both the wind-tunnel UAVs.
experiments and the CFD simulations is shown in Fig. 10. The
drag coefficients presented in Fig. 10a are normalized with a ref- 3.2.2. Wheel drag and complete front landing gear drag
erence area of 1 m2 , which allows a direct drag force comparison. The front landing gear drag measurements, including wheels,
The differences between the struts with a rectangular and circu- are shown in Fig. 11, together with the values of the isolated struts

10
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al. Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306

Fig. 10. Front landing gear strut drag.

Fig. 11. Front landing gear drag with struts and wheels.

as a comparison (nomenclature see Fig. 5). Wheel drag significantly Table 2

affects overall front landing gear drag and increases it by over 30% Drag coefficients and interference factors for front landing gear.
compared to the isolated strut cases. The total front gear drag is Main gear C D isolated strut CD Strut IFF Wheel IFF
divided into the strut’s and wheel’s contribution in the CFD sim- size rectangular/ isolated rectangular/ rectangular/
ulations and presented in Fig. 11. All configurations show only a circular wheel circular circular

slight increase in strut drag due to strut-wheel interference, similar Small 0.923/0.846 0.213 1.06/1.04 3.33/3.44
Medium 0.874/0.835 0.224 1.01/1.04 3.34/3.11
to the case of the main landing gear. Again, wheel-strut interfer-
ence significantly increases wheel drag compared to isolated wheel
cases. The presence of the strut greatly affects the flow around the 3.3. Turret
wheel. The detected effects are very similar to the ones described
for the main wheels and not repeated here. Both Turrets 1 and 2 are simplified turret models and geometri-
The drag coefficients identified for the front landing gear based cally identical except for their different diameters. This affects the
on the wind-tunnel and CFD studies are presented in Table 2. All relationship between turret diameter and fuselage diameter. While
drag coefficients are normalized with the respective body frontal the diameter of Turret 1 is 62.5% of the fuselage width, this value
area. The investigated struts have very similar drag coefficients increases to 83.3% for Turret 2. Both turrets were tested with three
that only vary by about 10% for all cases. The struts’ drag coef- different height-to-diameter ratios, and their drag coefficients are
ficients might be increased with small interference factors due to presented in Fig. 12. These turrets do not represent the shape of
wheel-strut interference effects. The wheel interference factors for actual EO/IR turrets of UAVs, and their significance in terms of tur-
all front strut and wheel combinations are very close and similar ret drag prediction is, therefore, limited. However, the analyses of
to the ones identified for the main wheels. these turrets allow a further validation of the wind-tunnel data of

11
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 12. Drag of turrets 1 and 2 with data from Sluder et al. [26].
this study, as comparable data is available from Sluder et al. [26].
They investigated clean turrets with a variety of height-to-diameter
ratios at similar Reynolds numbers. The results of both this wind-
tunnel study and the one from Sluder et al. are close and indicate
an increase in turret drag coefficient with respect to their height-
to-diameter ratio. This study finds slightly smaller drag coefficients
than Sluder et al., which might be a result of the different test set-
tings. Sluder et al. placed their turrets on a large flat plate, while
this study used a dummy fuselage which width was only slightly
larger than the turrets’ diameters. However, the wind-tunnel data
of this study also indicates an increased uncertainty, as the ab-
solute drag forces of Turret 1 and Turret 2 are comparably small.
Remarkably, both this wind-tunnel study and the one from Sluder
et al. revealed a significant increase in drag coefficient based on
the turret frontal area for a comparably small increase in height-
to-diameter ratio. The turrets with the largest height-to-diameter
ratio of this study (0.7) show a more than 40% increased drag co-
efficient compared to the hemispherical ones (h/d = 0.5). Sluder
et al. further show that this drag coefficient increase reaches a
plateau for clean turrets with a height-to-diameter ratio of 1.0. A
further increase in the height-to-diameter ratio up to 2.0 does not
change the drag coefficient to a noteworthy degree.
Turret 3 represents an EO/IR sensor turret, and its drag was
measured multiple times, while the turret was rotated around its
yaw axis in nine steps. This is representative of mission scenarios,
in which a turret performs yaw rotations to adjust its field-of-view.
The measurements were taken consecutively and, therefore, ex-
Fig. 13. Drag and surface pressure of Turret 3 with data from Sluder et al. [26].
12
Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
clude dynamic rotational effects. The drag of Turret 3 dependent
on its yaw orientation is presented in Fig. 13a. The turret yaw an-
gles are visualized in Fig. 13a, whereby the reader is looking with
the flow direction. The turrets sensors are pointing forward and in
flight direction for turret yaw angle 0◦ . Drag results from Sluder et
al. [26] for a clean turret model with a height-to-diameter ratio of
one are plotted as a comparison.
The results show a significant drag dependency on the turret
yaw orientation. The drag is highest when the camera sensors are
facing upstream (0◦ yaw angle) and reduces up to a yaw angle of
90◦ , where the sensors are facing sideways. This configuration re-
duces the drag of Turret 3 by about 28% compared to the 0◦ yaw
angle. A further increase in the yaw angle then again increases its
drag up to 180◦ yaw angle and the sensors facing downstream.
This position, however, still shows a 12% reduction in turret drag
compared to the 0◦ yaw angle. The drag of Turret 3, which repre-
sents an EO/IR turret, is significantly larger than compared to the
clean turret model from Sluder et al. [26]. Its drag coefficient is
more than 60% higher compared to the clean counterpart at the
same height-to-diameter ratio and yaw angle 0◦ . At the optimal
yaw orientation of 90◦ the drag of Turret 3 is still about 12% higher
than the clean turret’s one.
The findings are supported by numerical analyses that show
significant flow distortion and separation on the flat sensor sur-
faces in the 0◦ turret yaw position. This early separation leads to a
comparably high turret drag in this case. The analyses also indicate
that a significant part of the high drag in the 0◦ /180◦ position is
a reason of the geometrical connection (closed gap) between the
spherical and cylindrical parts of the turret. Strong flow recircu-
lation and intense flow separation are observed in this area for
both the 0◦ and 180◦ yaw position. These effects further increase
turret drag. The turret side that faces the inflow in the 90◦ yaw
position (sensors facing sideways) gives a more beneficial behav-
ior. Here, the spherical part of the turret smoothly joins into the
cylindrical one. This reduces flow disturbances and delays separa-
tion compared to the 0◦ /180◦ yaw orientation. Consequently, this
yaw orientation reduces the drag of the turret.
The major aerodynamic effect of the turret yaw orientation is
further visible in the pressure coefficient distribution on its center-
line in Fig. 13b. The pressure coefficients were analyzed with the
numerical analysis and present instantaneous values. The pressure
is determined on the centerline of the spherical part, indicated
with green lines around the turrets in Fig. 13b. The pressure on
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 14. Landing gear and turret combination tests (wind-tunnel results).
the centerline of the front half (0◦ < θ < 90◦ ) of turret yaw angle
0◦ is greatly affected by the sensor surfaces. However, it generally
decreases over the half-sphere, which coincides with a flow accel-
eration over the front surface. The flow separates early and stays
detached. The pressure on the front half centerline (0 < θ < 90◦ )
behaves comparably to a sphere for yaw orientations 90◦ and 180◦ .
Similar results were also reported in other investigations with sim-
plified turrets (see [27,30]). The 180◦ yaw angle shows a higher
flow acceleration and slightly later flow separation compared to
the 90◦ case, while the pressure in the separated aft region is
comparable. This would usually indicate a reduction in drag in
analogy to the flow behavior of a sphere. However, this advantage
is counteracted by increased drag caused by the geometric con-
nection between the spherical and cylindrical parts, facing towards
the flow in the 180◦ position (see above).
The results indicate that the drag behavior of EO/IR sensor tur-
rets is complex and can depend on the orientation towards the
flow. The specific geometrical features of such turrets can affect
their aerodynamic behavior to a significant degree. Therefore, it
might not be easy to derive universally valid empirical drag esti-
mation recommendations for general EO/IR sensor turrets. Never-
theless, this study shows that the drag of EO/IR turrets is much
higher compared to simplified and clean turret geometries. A drag
estimation using available data for clean turrets might significantly
underestimate the drag of actual EO/IR turrets. The authors, there-
fore, recommend increasing the drag coefficients that are found in
the literature for clean turrets. This study shows that drag coeffi-
cients on the order of 0.55-0.78 are appropriate depending on the
expected flow disturbances caused by the turret geometry. Further
investigations are necessary to confirm this range for other turret
geometries.
3.4. Landing gear and turret interference effects
The previously presented results investigated front landing gear,
main landing gear, and turret on an isolated basis. However, in real
applications, these would all be attached to a UAV’s fuselage si-
multaneously. This makes these components prone to interference
effects. To analyze these effects, several wind-tunnel tests were
performed with a variety of simultaneously attached components.
The results are compared to the components’ isolated behaviors
and further studied with CFD simulations. First, only landing gear
components were tested together, without the presence of a tur-
13
Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
ret. Combining all available front- and main landing gear config-
urations would result in an excessive number of tests. Therefore,
rectangularly shaped front struts were only tested together with
rectangularly shaped main struts. Circular front struts were only
tested together with streamlined main gear struts. Furthermore,
small front gears were only combined with small main gears,
while medium front gears were tested together with medium and
large main gears. The drag results of these tests are presented in
Fig. 14a. The solid bars show the drag measured of the complete
configuration (front and main gear) while the dotted and dashed
bars show the isolated values from previous tests as a compari-
son. The summation of the individual component drag matches the
measurement of the complete gear configuration rather accurately.
Differences are in the order of 3%, which is within the given mea-
surement accuracy. In such, no interference effects between front
and main gear could be observed.
In a second step, Turret 3 was added to the model and tested
together with the medium-sized, front, and main gears. The tur-
ret’s sensors are facing upstream (yaw angle 0◦ ). Such a configura-
tion is shown in Fig. 1c. The drag results of the complete config-
uration are presented in Fig. 14b as solid bars. Again, dotted and
dashed bars show the individual components’ drag as a compari-
son. The complete configuration consisting of front gear, main gear,
and turret produces about 20% less drag than the summation of
their components. This is consistent for both the rectangular and
streamlined/circular gear configurations. The turret is situated be-
hind the front landing gear, which generates a significant wake.
The wake structure is visualized with the magnitude of the vortic-
ity as a volume rendering in Fig. 15a. The pressure is significantly
reduced inside the wake, as shown in Fig. 15b, on the symmetry
plane of the model. The reduced pressure in front of the turret re-
duces its drag considerably. The CFD analysis further shows that
both front, and main landing gear drag are not affected by the
presence of the turret. The drag coefficient of Turret 3 is reduced
to 0.48 compared to 0.78 (normalized to the frontal area) in its
isolated configuration. This is almost a 40% drag reduction of the
turret and a significant result.
Wake effects are generally complex and highly dependent on
the upstream geometry and the distance between the two bod-
ies. The turret drag reduction results found in this study, therefore,
may not be universally applicable. The relative positioning between
the turret and front landing gear depends on multiple factors like
the UAV configuration, the center of gravity, or field-of-view con-
F. Götten, M. Havermann, C. Braun et al.
Fig. 15. Contours of pressure coefficient on the symmetry plane of the model and volume rendering of vorticity magnitude (instantaneous values).
siderations. Deriving simple semi-empirical relationships that in-
corporate these effects is not possible due to the large variety of
contributing factors. Hoerner [18] recommends reducing the drag
coefficient of bluff bodies that are located in wakes of upstream
components by a ratio of the local dynamic pressure in front of
the body and the freestream dynamic pressure. The local dynamic
pressure, however, is usually unknown and might not be easily es-
timated in the design stages that target empirical drag estimation.
In this sense, it is recommended to estimate EO/IR turret drag as
an isolated component as this yields conservative estimates.
4. Conclusion
The paper presents the results of a combined wind-tunnel and
numerical approach to analyze the drag characteristics of typical
UAV landing gears and sensor turrets. Both landing gear and turret
geometries are based on statistical evaluations and are represen-
tative of a wide variety of actual configurations used on fixed-
wing unmanned aircraft. Isolated main landing gear strut drag was
found to be a major contributor to overall landing gear drag. The
analysis showed that great drag savings are possible by streamlin-
ing main gear struts. At similar load carrying capabilities, stream-
lined main gear struts have the potential of reducing strut drag
by over 50%. The drag of the isolated main gear struts behaved
proportionally to the struts’ frontal areas, which allowed deriving
simple empirical drag estimation recommendations. Wheels play a
very important part in overall main landing gear drag, as their at-
tachment introduces significant interference effects. These interfer-
ence effects lead to a minor increase in strut drag while installed
wheel drag can more than triple compared to isolated cases. This
is a reason of flow disturbances around the wheel caused by the
presence of the struts. These disturbances affect the pressure dis-
tribution around the wheels and support early flow separation.
Further research might investigate the effect of wheel fairings.
Front landing gear struts were designed as oleo-pneumatic
damping struts with a circular and rectangular cross-section. The
drag characteristics were largely independent of the cross-sectional
shape as the rectangular cross-section had well-rounded edges.
The front strut drag was found to be proportional to the frontal
area of the strut, and simple drag estimation recommendations
were developed. As for the main gear, wheel-front-strut interfer-
ence effects significantly increased wheel drag compared to iso-
lated cases. Combined tests of front and main landing gears did
not reveal any interference effects, and their combined drag was
merely equal to the total installed landing gear drag.
The drag of an isolated EO/IR sensor turret was found to be
much larger than the drag of comparable hemisphere-cylinder
14
Aerospace Science and Technology 107 (2020) 106306
combinations due to flow disturbances caused by protruding sen-
sor surfaces and the rotational mechanism. These geometrical fea-
tures promote early separation and have the potential of increasing
turret drag by more than 60% compared to clean hemisphere-
cylinder combinations of the same height-to-diameter ratio. EO/IR
turret drag further depends on the turret orientation towards the
flow and might be significantly reduced when protruding sensors
are not facing towards the flow. Placing a turret in the wake of the
front landing gear significantly reduced the turret drag caused by
a reduction of dynamic pressure. While drag savings are possible,
optical effects might be worsened due to the increased turbulence
intensity, possibly increasing vibrations of the turret. Further re-
search is required to investigate the drag of other EO/IR turret
geometries, as drag can be significantly affected by individual sen-
sor arrangements and the rotational mechanism.
The findings of this study cumulated in drag estimation rec-
ommendations for both front, and main landing gear struts and
wheels as well as EO/IR turrets. An application of these recom-
mendations in early conceptual UAV design has the potential to
enhance the accuracy of empirical drag estimations.
Funding
Funding for this work was provided by the Department of
Aerospace Engineering of FH Aachen University of Applied Sciences
and the College of Science Engineering and Health of the Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to
influence the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Siemens
PLM Software for providing academic licenses of their software
Star-CCM+.
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