Arrangement of surfaces

Wing design requirements

Performance requirements(stall speed, maximum
speed, take-off run, range, and endurance)
Stability (lateral-directional static and dynamic
stability) and
Control requirements
The wing must produce sufficient lift while
generating minimum drag, and minimum
pitching moment

Based on number of surfaces

Monoplane
Biplane
Three surfaced aircrafts
Canard aircrafts

Biplanes
Biplanes dominated aviation into the 1930s
It dominated that era due to the fact that structurally strong
Monoplanes were not successful

Highly cambered negative pitching wing fails

Wires between the surfaces helped in carrying the tensile load

The biplane, on the other hand, was strong for

several reasons
They are compact, and their
wingspans, which are shorter than
those of comparable monoplanes

Smaller bending moments.

Moreover, lift is shared between

two planes instead of just one
Wings of a biplane can be made
0.8 to 0.9 times the weight of a
monoplane, with greater specific
strength and stiffness

 As long as one can live with lower lift/drag

and therefore less range than a monoplane,
biplanes can be superior to monoplanes

 They can carry more wing area for their size,

can take off and land in shorter distances, and
often have softer stall qualities.

They can perform well into and out of short

fields without needing costly high lift devices,
and can therefore lift more payload.

They are more easily constructed for a lower

price than a monoplane, all else remaining
equal.

Problem
Lower lift to drag ratio
Higher Interference drag

High Induced drag

Induced drag
The most important is that mutual interference
from the vortex system of each plane increases
total downwash and induced drag, making it
more than that of a monoplane with the same
aspect ratio
Aerofoil section increases downwash and
induced drag, by an amount which depends
upon the ratio of gap / chord

canard

 It is a horizontal stabilizer that is located

forward of the main wing.
Control canard & lifting canard
Control canard Provides pitching moment
equivalent to HT
Lifting canard - carries a larger portion of the
lift compared to the control canard and
therefore, reduces the lift on the main wing

Control Canard

Three-surface aircraft

Piaggio P.180 Avanti

SU -33

 Three surface configuration may be used to give

safe stalling characteristics and short takeoff and
landing (STOL)

It is also claimed to allow minimizing the total

wing surface area, reducing the accompanying
drag

 The lifting canard is designed to stall at a

lower angle of attack than the main wing. As a
result, the nose of the aircraft will drop before
the main wing can stall and, therefore, make it
statically stable.
The forward wing's Angle of incidence relative
to the fuselage is set so that it stalls before the
main wing, producing an automatic nose-down
effect prior to the onset of main wing stall
The lifting canard design lowers the overall
drag on the aircraft by reducing the lift on the
main wing, and thereby reducing the liftinduced drag on the main wing.

Beechcraft Starship

Different configuration of lifting surfaces

High wing
Low wing
Mid wing

High wing

Advantages
Eases and facilitates the loading and unloading
of loads and cargo into and out of cargo
aircraft

 Facilitates the installation of an engine on the

wing, since the engine (and propeller)
clearance is higher (and safer) compared with
a low-wing configuration

 Facilitates the installation of a strut

The aircraft structure is lighter when struts are
employed

 Facilitates taking off

and landing from sea. In
a sea-based or
amphibian aircraft,
during a take-off
operation

 Increases the dihedral

effect . It makes the
aircraft laterally more
stable

 The wing will produce

more lift compared with
a mid- and low wing,
since two parts of the
wing are attached at
least on the top part

 For an engine that is installed under the wing,

there is less possibility of sand and debris
entering the engine and damaging the blades
and propellers

 The wing drag produces a nose-up pitching

moment, so it is longitudinally destabilizing.

This is due to the higher location of the wing

drag line relative to the aircraft center of
gravity

Disadvantages

The ground effect is

lower, compared with
low wing.
During take-off and
landing operations,
the ground will
influence the wing
pressure distribution.
The wing lift will be
slightly lower than for
the low-wing
configuration.

 The horizontal tail area of an aircraft with a

high wing is about 20% larger than the
horizontal tail area with a low wing. This is
due to more downwash of a high wing on the
tail(T- tail is different)

 The pilot has less higher-than-horizon view.

The wing above the pilot will obscure part of
the sky for a fighter pilot

 The aircraft lateral control is weaker compared

with mid-wing and low wing, since the aircraft
has more laterally dynamic stability
Although the high wing has more advantages
than disadvantages, not all the items have the
same weighing factor.

It depends on which design objectives are

more significant

Low wing
ADVANTAGES

 The aircraft take-off performance is better,

compared with a high-wing configuration, due
to the ground effect.
The wing has less induced drag. (High wing
has higher Cl max)
The aircraft has higher lateral control
compared with a high-wing configuration,
since the aircraft has less lateral static stability

 The wing has less downwash on the tail, so the

tail is more effective
The wing drag produces a nose-down pitching
moment, so a low wing is longitudinally
stabilizing.
This is due to the lower position of the wing
drag line relative to the aircraft center of
gravity

Disadvantages

 The wing generates less lift, compared with a

high-wing configuration, since the wing has two
separate sections

The aircraft will have a higher stall speed

compared with a high-wing configuration, due to
a lower CLmax

 The wing makes a lower contribution to the

aircraft dihedral effect, thus the aircraft is
laterally dynamically less stable

The pilot has a lower-than-horizon view. The

wing below the pilot will obscure part of the
sky for a fighter pilot

Mid wing
The aircraft structure is heavier, due to the
necessity of reinforcing the wing root at the
intersection with the fuselage
The mid-wing is aerodynamically streamlined
compared with the two other configurations
The mid-wing has less interference drag than
the low wing or high wing