Aircraft Design -1

Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch

Conceptual Design Process
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• The design effort usually starts with a conceptual sketch
– Approximate wing and tail geometries
– Fuselage shape
– Location of major components: Engine, cockpit, payload/passenger
compartment, landing gear, fuel tanks etc.
• The conceptual sketch can be used to estimate aerodynamics
and weight fractions based on previous designs.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Takeoff weight buildup
– Design takeoff gross weight is the total weight of the aircraft as it
begins the mission for which it was designed.
– Design TOGW is not necessarily equal to the MTOW.

– Empty weight includes structure, engines, landing gear, fixed

equipment, avionics etc. (anything which is not crew, payload or fuel.)
– Crew and payload weights are known weights which are given in the
design requirements.

Known Unknowns
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Takeoff weight buildup
– The empty weight and fuel weight depend on the total aircraft weight.
– In order to construct a calculation method we express these weights
as fractions of the total aircraft weight.

– Then solve for the design weight

– We need to estimate the fuel and the empty weight fractions to

determine the design weight.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Empty weight estimation
– can be estimated statistically from historical trends.

• Typically ranges from 0.3 to 0.7

• Long range aircraft has the lowest

empty weight fraction.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Empty weight estimation
– can be estimated statistically from historical trends.

Variable-sweep wing is heavier than a fixed wing therefore we use a

factor of 1.04 to account for weight increase at this initial sizing stage.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Fuel-fraction estimation
– The required fuel weight depends on
• The mission to be flown
• The aircraft aerodynamics
• Engine’s fuel consumption
• Aircraft weight (since weight during mission affects the drag)

– Fuel is typically proportional to aircraft size therefore fuel weight

fraction is approximately independent of weight.

– can be estimated based on mission profile.

Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Mission profiles
– In order to estimate the total mission fuel fraction, a design mission
should be defined.

– The mission is divided into segments and the mission segment weight
fractions are estimated as follows.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Mission segment weight fractions
– The mission segments are numbered with zero denoting the start of
mission. For example for a cruise mission
• 0 – beginning weight 𝑊0
• 1 – warm-up and takeoff 𝑊1
• 2 – climb 𝑊2 Weights at
• 3 – cruise 𝑊3 the end of
each
• 4 – loiter 𝑊4
segment
• 5 – land 𝑊5

2 3

0 1 5
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Mission segment weight fractions
– For any mission segment i the mission segment weight fraction is

𝑊𝑖
𝑊𝑖−1

– We first estimate each weight fraction than multiply together to

obtain the aircraft weight fraction at the end of mission:
– For example, for the mission below we have
𝑊5 𝑊1 𝑊2 𝑊3 𝑊4 𝑊5
=
𝑊0 𝑊0 𝑊1 𝑊2 𝑊3 𝑊4
2 3

0 1 5
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Warmup, takeoff and landing segments
– These weight fractions are estimated historically. The values below are
averaged values that can be used for initial sizing.

2 3

0 1 5
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Cruise segment weight fraction
– We ignore descent (assume the cruise ends with distance traveled
during descent is part of the cruise range). The Breguet range equation
is used as follows

R: Range (m) Recall:

C: specific fuel consumption C and L/D vary with speed and
V: velocity altitude, and also C varies with
L/D: lift-to-drag ratio throttle setting and L/D varies with
aircraft weight.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Loiter weight fraction
– Endurance equation

E: Endurance or loiter time Recall:

C and L/D vary with speed and
altitude, and also C varies with
throttle setting and L/D varies with
aircraft weight.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Specific fuel consumption
– Rate of fuel burned divided by thrust
– For jet engines: fuel mass flow per hour per unit thrust force
• British units: lb/hr/lb
• Metric: mg/Ns
– Propeller engine: SFC is generally given by
• Pounds of fuel per hour to produce one hp at the propeller shaft

– A propeller thrust SCF equivalent to jet-engine SFC can be calculated.

fps units.
Here V is ft/s

– Equivalent thrust SFC for a propeller driven aircraft

Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Specific fuel consumption
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• L/D Estimation
– L/D is a measure of overall aerodynamic efficiency.
– At subsonic speeds L/D mostly depends on wing span and wetted area.
– Drag at subsonic speeds = Induced drag + parasite drag

Primarily function of AR

Primarily skin friction drag

Proportional to exposed area

• In order to estimate
subsonic L/D both the
AR and the wetted area
should be taken into
account.
• This is done by defining
a wetted AR.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• L/D Estimation
– The wetted area ratio and the aspect ratio can be used together to
obtain an early estimate of L/D.
𝑏2 𝐴
– 𝑊𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜 = =
𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑟𝑒𝑓
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• L/D for cruise and loiter
– The maximum L/D can be initially estimated based on the previous
method.
– Drag varies with altitude and velocity. For a given altitude (for example
the design cruise altitude) there is a single velocity that maximizes L/D.
– Recall from performance analyses that for efficient cruise and loiter
for jet and prop aircraft we have

– For initial sizing the estimated (L/D)max and the percentages above
can be used to estimate the cruise and loiter weight fractions.
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Fuel fraction estimation
– Estimating all the mission segment weight fractions as previously
defined the total mission weight fraction 𝑊𝑥 𝑊0 can be calculated as
the multiplication of all weight fractions,
– For example, for the previous cruise mission
𝑊𝑥 𝑊5 𝑊1 𝑊2 𝑊3 𝑊4 𝑊5
= =
𝑊0 𝑊0 𝑊0 𝑊1 𝑊2 𝑊3 𝑊4

– The mission fuel is equal to 1 − 𝑊𝑥 𝑊0

– Assuming a typical 6% allowance for reserve and trapped fuel

𝑊𝑓 𝑊𝑥
= 1.06 1 −
𝑊0 𝑊0
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Takeoff weight calculation procedure
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– Antisubmarine warfare A/C design requirements
• Loiter for 3 hr at a distance of 1500 n.mi. (2778 km) from the takeoff point
• Payload: sophisticated electronic equipment for to detect and track
submarines: 10000 lb.
• Crew: 4 (800 lb)
• Cruise M = 0.6
 Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– Conceptual sketches
Good for engine clearance bad
Tail in for maintenance
the
exhaust
stream

Low trim drag

Wide CG
range

Low wing: landing gear can be

stowed in the wing root
Bad for engine maintenance Selected
concept
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– Conceptual sketch
Fuel tank
locations

Crew station

Landing gear
stowage
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– L/D Estimation
• AR = 10 selected
• Combined AR = 7 (including both the wing and canard area, Raymer
assumes about .3 percent of total lift is produced by the canard)

Wetted area ratio

𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑟𝑒𝑓 ≅ 5.5

𝐴 7
= = 1.27
𝑆𝑤𝑒𝑡 𝑆𝑟𝑒𝑓 5.5
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– L/D Estimation
• Having the wetted area ratio estimated we can know estimate the
(L/D)max
For a wetted AR of 1.27 we can
initially expect a maximum lift-
to-drag ratio of 16.

𝐿
≅ 16
𝐷 𝑚𝑎𝑥

Since this is a jet aircraft we have

𝐿 𝐿
=
𝐷 𝑙𝑜𝑖𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐷 𝑚𝑎𝑥

𝐿 𝐿
= 0.866
𝐷 𝑐𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝐷 𝑚𝑎𝑥
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
Assumed a cruise
altitude of 30000 ft

Equation for
military
cargo/bomber is
used

This can be easily coded.

Start with an initial estimate
of Wo, it will converge in a
couple of iterations.

Lockheed S3-A has 52539 lb

of takeoff gross weight

This initial guess is very close

although we used crude
estimates
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
– Range Trade Study
• Recalculate the cruise segments for arbitrarily selected ranges and
• Size the aircraft separately for these ranges

– Payload Trade Study

• The mission segment weight fractions and fuel fraction are unchanged but
• The numerator of the sizing equation is varied for different payload
weights
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft
Cruise segments are
recalculated
Sizing From a Conceptual Sketch
• Design example – Raymer’s ASW Aircraft

Empty
weight
equation is
adjusted