Lecture Aircraft Design

1. The main lecture Aircraft Design (4 SWS) is part of the Bachelor Degree with emphasis on "Design and Lightweight Structures".
2. An introduction to Aircraft Design (1.5 SWS) is part of the lecture "Aircraft Projects" in the Bachelor Degree with emphasis on "Cabin and Cabin Systems".

Table of Contents

On other pages:
Distance Education
Scholz: English Lecture Notes (HOOU)
Scholz: German Lecture Notes
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Scholz: Examinations ,

News

General Information

Course "Number":

FE

Credit Hours:

4 (scheduled for the 6th semester)

Teaching Objectives

• Students know ...
  • ... the technical German and English terms of aircraft design parameters. Furthermore, they know the fundamental relationship of aircraft design parameters.
• Students are able to ...
  • ... design an aircraft (to the detail as covered during the lecture). Furthermore, they are able to work on specialized areas in aircraft design without assistance, making use of the various sources of information (which are generally written in English).
• Students have developed a capability ...
  • ... to structure design activities systematically and efficiently.

Table of Contents

Nomenclature
Abbreviations


Introduction and Fundamentals

 1 Introduction

 2 Design Sequence

 3 Requirements and Regulations

 4 Aircraft Configurations


Preliminary Sizing

 5 Preliminary Sizing 

 
Conceptual Design

 6 Fuselage Design

 7 Wing Design

 8 High Lift Systems and Maximum Lift Coefficients

 9 Empenage Design I 
  
10 Weight and Balance

11 Empenage Design II    

12 Landing Gear Integration

13 Drag Polar and Drag Prediction

14 Design Evaluation


15 References

Preliminary Sizing Tool: PreSTo-Classic

• Homepage: PreSTo - There are more modules of PreSTo.
• Homepage: OPerA - OPerA - Optimization in Preliminary Aircraft Design. OPerA is based on PreSTO.
• Homepage: SAS - SAS - Simple Aircraft Sizing. Preliminary Aircraft Sizing. SAS is combining PreSTo-Classic and OPerA.

A-C_Preliminary_Sizing.xls

A-C_Preliminary_Sizing.xlsx (EXCEL Spread Sheet --- NEW Excel-Version)     Changed on:  11 July 2018,     Size::   93K

Other Help and Tools

Systematic Collection of Aircraft Parameters
Taken the Dassault 8X as an Example
AircraftData_Dassault_8X.xls (EXCEL Spread Sheet)     Changed on:  02 June 2021,     Size::   29K

Some Aviation History

You may also look at my talk The Future of Aviation (PDF, 17MB) which has a little historic introduction asking: "Who was first in flight?"

During the lecture (German: Vorlesung = Reading) I read selected History Chapters from Anderson's books.

Anderson: Introduction to Flight:

• Otto Lilienthal - The Glider Man
• Wilbur and Orville Wright - Inventors of the First Practical Airplane
• NACA and NASA
• The Standard Atmosphere
• Breguet and the Range Formula
• Philosophy on Stability and Control
• The Development of Flight Controls
• Early Propeller Development
• Inventors of the Early Jet Engines

• Airplane Design and Airfoil Thickness
• Ludwig Prantl
• Ernst Mach
• Richard T. Whitcomb

India

Romania

France

The Netherlands

Academics perspective: Prof. (Emeritus) Egbert Torenbeek (TU Delft)
"First scientific book on Aircraft Design", Open Access
Prof. Torenbeek on Wikipedia
Publications

Prof. Egbert Torenbeek, 2016
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DGLR)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Brazil (Santos Dumont)

USA

Germany

Ludwig Prandtl.  The beginning of modern aerodynamics. PhD students:

• Jakob Ackeret proposed the term "Mach number", ...
• Albert Betz aerodynamics of wind turbines, ...
• Hermann Blenk head of "Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luftfahrt" (DFL), ...
• Paul Richard Heinrich Blasius boundry layer, ... at HAW Hamburg
• Adolf Busemann concept of swept wings, head of gas dynamics at "Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Luftfahrt" (DFL)...
• Theodore von Kármán - please read
• William Bailey Oswald and the Oswald Factor (Airplane Efficiency Factor) NACA TR 408
• Michael Max Munk thin airfoil theory, Munk's Stagger Theorem ...
• Hermann Schlichting boundary layer transitioning from a laminar to turbulent, ...
• Walter Tollmien boundary layer transitioning from a laminar to turbulent, ...

Book: Aeronautical Research in Germany
Patent: Area Rule

Subjects: Propulsion
Hans von Ohain designer of the first operational jet engine

Pioneers: These early German aircraft builders and pioneers are not well known. Have a look anyway:

Gustav Weißkopf
http://www.flyingmachines.org/gwhtd.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Wei%C3%9Fkopf

Karl Jatho
http://www.flyingmachines.org/jatho.html
http://www.karl-jatho-projekt.de
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Jatho

Industry perspective:
Airbus A380.   Responsible for A380 development: Jürgen Thomas (from 1996 until his retirement in 2001)

More? Yes, more!

• More countries should have been mentioned in more detail.
• Historical views in aeronautical engineering are often dominated by looking at aerodynamics. However, looking at Aircraft Design History is about ...
• Subjects: Looking at all disciplices relevant to aircraft design: aerodynamics, flight mechanics, structures, propulsion, aircraft systems, economics, ...
• Pioneers: Looking at early successful aircraft designs and the designers behind these designs.
• Industry perspective: Looking at important aircraft designs and the designers behind these designs.
• Academics perspective: Looking at famous aircraft design teachers and researchers.

Selected Online Contributions to Aircraft Design

Prof. Dr. William H. Mason, Virginia Tech

Note: Links in the old form of https://www.dept.aoe.vt.edu/~mason/ must now be replaced by links of the form https://archive.aoe.vt.edu/mason/

Truss-Braced Wing Design

Dr. Élodie Roux

Software for the Vortex Lattice Method (VLM)

Resources "Aircraft Noise"

  Prof. Dr. Scholz
  Aircraft Design and Systems Group (AERO)
  Aeronautical Engineering
  Department of Automotive and Aeronautical Engineering
  Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
  Hamburg University of Applied Sciences