THE ELEMENTS OF TAILLESS AIRPLANE DESIGN By A. A. Backstrom (EAA 1162) The CG range can be greatly extended by using low Rt.l aspect ratio as in the Delta or Hoffman types. These are Frisco, TX 75034 not normally suited to small airplanes because of the high power requirements at climb speed. J. HERE HAS BEEN over the years a tendency to Baddies classify tailless airplane design as an area of mystique 1. Reduced CG range practiced by persons very adept in the manipulation of 2. Limited use of high lift devices Ouija boards. The people using these guidelines seem to be able to overlook the well-engineered airplanes that Discussion have shown good flight characteristics. Several of these have been certificated by the country of origin or used The small CG range will kill off mid-sized airplanes. operationally by their military units. After we have dis- To obtain a usable design the variable weights must be cussed the design problems, I will present some informa- very small or the airplane large so the weights can be tion on designs worthy of further development. distributed spanwise near the CG. To be blunt about it, The first decision in tailless airplane design is: don't try to design a Cherokee Six equivalent. The lim- WHY? To answer that question let's tabulate the pri- ited use of high lift devices makes achieving a large mary advantages and disadvantages. speed range difficult. Well, if the goodies outweigh the baddies to you, let's Goodies go on and look at small tailless airplane design consid- 1. Reduced drag erations point-by-point. (I assume that if you want a 2. Reduced weight very large tailless airplane you will get your own Ouija 3. Simpler structure (possible) board.) Wing Configuration Discussion As in any other airplane, the wings may be straight, The advantage of tailless airplanes is that for an swept back, or swept forward with various combinations equivalent payload, a lighter airplane requiring less of taper and twist. Determine wing sweep at the .25 power and fuel can be designed. chord line. Figure 1 illustrates these layouts and the re- MAC SWEPT BACK PLANK MAC FIGURE 1 STABLE WING SYSTEMS & THEIR LIFT DISTRIBUTIONS SPORT AVIATION 39 quired wing lift distributions. Of special interest is the will depend on whether the airfoil (or wing system for swept forward configuration. I do not recommend trying swept types) has a nose up (+) or nose down (-) pitch- the swept forward layout due to the highly loaded tips ing moment coefficient. Also, the stability is directly and the fact that they must either stall first or be pre- tied to the CG location. Figure 6 shows the stability vented from ever stalling. Of course, for satisfactory build up of the components of a conventional airplane flight characteristics the tips cannot be allowed to stall and the effect of CG location. I hope you can review first. Some NACA Wartime Reports show the proposed these figures and see that once you establish an airplane Cornelius glider tanker to be about the worst of the tail- configuration, the location of the CG relative to the less designs tested. A small amount of sweep forward to neutral point determines the static longitudinal stabil- produce a straight leading edge, as used by Jim Marske, ity. can produce good results. Harry's numbers in Figure 6 are approximate, but So this leaves us with straight and swept back. The they will serve to illustrate that a tailless design will determination of which to use will depend on the CG have the neutral point well forward of a tailed type. On travel required. Put simply, the more CG travel that a wing alone the neutral point is approximately 25% must be tolerated, the more sweep required. Figure 2 mean aerodynamic chord (MAC). The addition of a pod shows an in-work auxiliary powered plank sailplane de- as required for small machines will shift this slightly. sign intended for almost zero CG travel regardless of There is one other factor to be considered in design weight changes. You may ask why work for small CG and that is protection of the rear CG limit. The tailless travel if it could be controlled by incorporating sweep. airplane should be designed so that in normal loading it Well, the opposite problem is that the smaller the sweep will be very difficult to load the airplane aft of the es- angle the better the performance should be. tablished rear CG limit. This is because the range be- FUEL 3 GALS. MAX P|LOT WT AFT CG COULD BE IN LIGHTER PILOTS WILL BE WING AT CG FORWARD OF THIS POINT AIRPLANE REAR CG POINT THRUST LINE FIGURE 2 PLANK CONFIGURATION DESIGNED FOR MINIMUM CG TRAVEL Longitudinal Stability and CG Location Understanding longitudinal stability in airplanes provokes one of my pet peeves. I have heard the follow- ing statement thousands of times: "I know why a con- ventional airplane is stable, but I don't understand why yours is." Now really, if you understand one, you under- stand the other. To help all these people understand why airplanes are or are not longitudinally stable, let's take a quickie course on the subject using figures from Harry Hurt's excellent book, Aerodynamics For Naval Aviators. In these figures, Cm is pitching moment coef- ficient of the entire airplane, Cmac is pitching moment coefficient of the wing about the aerodynamic center, appproximately 25% chord at subsonic speeds. The sign convention is + for nose (or leading edge) up. Cl is lift coefficient, and increased Cl at fixed weight means lower speed or higher load factor. Figure 3A shows characteristics of a Cm vs Cl curve for a typical stable airplane. Stick fixed it will trim at the point marked Cm = 0 and when the airplane is dis- placed from this Cl it will tend to return to the Cm = 0 point. Figure 3B shows the other possible stability con- ditions and that the stability is directly proportional to the slope of the curve. Ordinarily the static longitudinal stability does not change with Cl except in the range where Cl Vs angle of attack is no longer linear. Figure 3C shows a possible condition with changes due to power LESS STABLE NEUTRAL effect, high lift devices, wing location, etc. Figures 4 and 5 show what a wing alone can contrib- FIGURE 3 ute to longitudinal stability. You will note that a wing AIRPLANE STATIC LONGITUDINAL STABILITY alone can be stable or unstable and that the trim point 40 MAY 1979 CHANGE IN LIFT TYPICAL BULD-U(> OF COMPONENTS -WMG-f FUSELAGE -AERODYNAMIC CENTER -CENJER OF GRAVITY C.6 9 JO% MAC EFFECT OF CG POSITION 50% MAC FIGURE 4 WING CONTRIBUTION STABLE. POSITIVE Cy FIGURE 6 NEGATIVE CM .UNSTAI STABILITY BUILD-UP AND EFFECT OF C G POSITION " to the problem is simply to have enough vertical surface far enough aft to accomplish this. On a swept wing you might use a diffuser tip as shown in Figure 7 rather than tip fins. You should note that both the bend down and the canting of the break line are required for a dif- fuser tip. The roll your own section will provide you with in- formation on how to find out how much area, etc. STABU.NEGATIVE CMA£ FIGURE 5 Aerodynamic Controls EFFECT OF CMAC. C.G. POSITION In selection of design for aerodynamic controls, you should try and select types that will produce a minimum tween unstable and unflyable is smaller than a tailed of adverse secondary effects. You may refer to the draw- type. ings of successful designs for some information on pro- Well, now to the final point — where to put the CG portion. (you thought I would never get there, didn't you!). On I personally favor wing tip elevens for pitch and roll my flying planks we have used from 15 to 22 percent control because they will build in additional wash out in MAC. The range forward of about 18% results in large the tip area at low speed which will help prevent tip elevon deflection and high trim drag. So for a new de- stalling and increase spin resistance. On straight wing sign, use about 20% MAC to start with and work for- designs with pusher engines tip fins and drag rudders ward and back slowly to determine what the design can should be used. With a straight wing tractor a single fin handle. You can refer to most aerodynamics text books on the aft pod can be used if it is far enough aft. Don't for ways to determine MAC. copy the EPB-lc in the EAA Museum because the arm This was more discussion than I intended, but I hope is too short; it was done that way to keep the sailplane it has helped you understand the basic principles of sta- trailerable. If you have a similar design problem you tic longitudinal stability. should use a fixed fin and drag rudders at the wing tip. The drag rudders may be like Jim Marske's XM-1D or a Directional Stability flap on the upper surface only with the lower surface Most of the reports of poor flight characteristics I fixed (similar to that shown in Figure 7 or the plank have heard of in tailless airplanes are the result of poor modification shown in Soaring, July 1972). On a swept directional stability. It seems that some designers, aim- wing design the diffuser tip with a drag flap rudder (see ing at drag reduction, lose sight of the fact that it won't Figure 7) or a small vertical surface and outward mov- fly right if it doesn't go in a straight line.