Staggerwing aircraft
AssigneeMcDonnell Douglas Corporation
InventorsChester W. Miller, Ray N. Herring
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An aircraft having a fuselage provided with wing panels in staggered positions along the fuselage such that control surfaces of the forward wing panel are substantially closer to the center of gravity than are the control surfaces of the rearward wing panel. This arrangement results in reduced drag effects at transonic speeds, and provides a novel way of obtaining precise control of the aircraft position by using the control surfaces for vertical translation with minimum pitching moments.
Claims12
In aircraft, the combination of an elongated fuselage and a single wing providing substantially all the lift of said aircraft, said wing consisting of a first single wing panel connected at one side of said fuselage, a second single wing panel connected at the opposite side of said fuselage, said first and second single wing panels being similar and in substantial coplanar alignment from side-to-side, having the same angle of sweep and being staggered, with said first single wing panel offset from said second single wing panel so as to have an asymetrical relationship relative to the longitudinal axis of said fuselage.
In aircraft having an asymmetrical wing to airframe geometry for reduced drag at transonic speeds and for precise control comprising, the improvement of:
- a fuselage elongated in the direction of the flight path a single wing providing substantially all the lift of said aircraft, said wing consisting of;
- a single pair of wing panels connected into said fuselage at opposite sides thereof and in substantially the same side-to-side plane, with one of said wing panels being disposed more forward on said fuselage than the other wing panel;
- and control surfaces hingedly mounted on each of said wing panels, said control surface on said one more forward wing panel predominately providing a lift component and said control surface on said other wing panel predominately providing a pitch component.
In a single wing aircraft convertible from a symmetrical wing configuration to a staggered wing configuration having substantially unchanged aerodynamic parameters affecting stability and control, and achieving significant reduction in wave drag at or in the region of Mach 1.2 for the staggered wing configuration, the combination of an elongated fuselage in which the center of gravity of the aircraft is located on the longitudinal axis of the fuselage, a pair of wing panels operably connected to said fuselage with one panel on each side of said fuselage and said panels having leading and trailing edges with said leading edges having the same angle of sweep, and means operating said panels between positions in symmetrical side-to-side alignment and positions with said panels staggered with one panel leading edge offset from the other panel leading edge so as to have an asymmetrical relationship relative to the longitudinal axes of said fuselage and without change in the sweep angle of said wing panels, such that the center of pressure of said panels are relatively displaced with respect to each other and with said center of gravity, and in such staggered wing configuration the cross sectional area of said panels is distributed along said fuselage to produce the reduction in wave drag.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.