Aircraft Design and History
The notion that man could fly or someday would be able to achieve flight has long since been an idea of man for literally centuries. As early as 400 BC, a Greek scholar by the name of Archytas built a wooden pigeon that moved through the air. Approximately 100 years later the Chinese developed kites, which are a form of gliders, which much later in history, allowed humans to fly in them (1). Mans first attempts at flight later progressed with designs by Leonardo daVinci. DaVinci's design was based on a flapping type wing, Givanni Borelli stated that a human's muscles were far to weak to flap the large surfaces needed to obtain flight and that the physical make up of humans would not be that which could be used in flight with such inventions. Glider flights later came to be through the inventions of a British inventor by the name of George Cayley. Cayley founded the study of Aerodynamics and was the first to suggest a fixed wing aircraft with a propeller. Cayley's invention led Otto Lilienthal to gliders that could be piloted by men up to heights of 100 feet or more, consequently Lilienthal was killed by his own invention during a flight. He broke his spine, and he died a day later in a Berlin hospital. There is some feeling that
2. http://www.scaled.com/projects/voyager/voyager.html inal XF-92A ship had a severe pitch-up problem but was tested with different wing-fence combinations to gather data on their contribution to solving that problem. The pilot also reported that the aircraft was sluggish and underpowered with the help of this research the Air Force went on to develop the F100 Super Sabre, this aircraft although was put in production also had difficulties in directional stability and roll coupling problems. North American already had an idea for a fix: enlarge the area of the aircraft's vertical fin and add more area to the airplane's wing tips. From October 1954 through December, NACA pilot, Scott Crossfield flew NACA's F-100A on a series of flights defining the roll coupling boundaries of the airplane. In December 1954 NACA High-Speed Flight Station added a larger vertical fin to the F-100A which gave 10 percent more surface area. Eventually North American installed an even larger fin having 27 percent greater area as well as wing t! Richard Rutan and Jeanna Yeager piloted the aircraft from a cramped 7.5 ft tall, 3.3 ft wide and under 3 ft. tall cockpit. Voyager's takeoff weight was more than 10 times the structural weight, but its drag was lower than almost any other powered aircraft. Voyager's wingtips sustained minor damage during its takeoff roll because of the massive amount of fuel it was carrying. Approximately 2.5 ft. of graphite skin was missing from the left wing's foam core. The aircraft's design and light-weight structural materials allowed it to carry an unprecedented amount of fuel on its 25,000 mile flight; nearly 7,000 lbs. Voyager took off from Edwards Dec. 14, and traveled at an average speed of 115.8 mph. (3). There have been many other advances in engineering design of aircraft many of which have come in the way of military applications. Some of the designs that have come about since the early 1940's have been mostly in the form of experimental aircraft however, these aircraft have paved the way in the form of how we un
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