The evolution of jet airliners explained through the range equation

Abstract

Aircraft have greatly changed over the last decades, mainly due to astonishing developments in key technological areas. The present note attempts to correlate the evolution of jet airliners with improvements in aerodynamics and propulsion. A simple model is elaborated from the range equation, taking the main magnitudes of the payload—range diagram as input data. Results show the robustness and potential of such procedures.

The Effect of Engine Location on the Aerodynamic Efficiency of a Flying-V Aircraft

“…2 Now that the classical tube-and-wing configuration can no longer be further optimized, flyingwing aircraft have become an important asset to reduce the climate impact of long-haul aircraft. 3,4 The Flying-V concept originated in 2015 as part of this trend: a novel aircraft configuration where the main lifting surface has been fully integrated with the passenger cabin. This new layout was originally developed by Benad 5 as a result from a collaboration between TU Berlin and Airbus GmbH, and studied in more depth by Faggiano et al 6 and Van der Schaft.…”

An estimation method for the fuel burn and other performance characteristics of civil transport aircraft during cruise: part 2, determining the aircraft’s characteristic parameters

“…Therefore, by definition, at the start of the cruise Figure 11. A comparison between the estimated values of (η o L/D) avg and the previously published results of Martinez-Val et al (21) and Randle et al (22) . The solid line has unit slope, and the dashed lines indicate a ±10% variation.…”

“…The (η o L/D) avg values obtained by method 2 can also be compared directly with those given in other references, e.g. Martinez-Val et al (21) and Randle et al (22) . In both of those studies, the authors sought to estimate (η o L/D) avg either from payload-range diagrams or from flight data recorder information, and results are provided for 20 of the aircraft listed in Table 1.…”

“…If the aircraft is always operating at optimum (η o L/D), the appropriate cruise altitude and, hence, the Reynolds number is determined by the aircraft mass, m -see Equation (20). This being the case, (η o L/D) o also varies with m -see Equation (21). The value of (η o L/D) o at the beginning of the cruise is determined, primarily, by the take-off mass and, as the aircraft consumes fuel, both m and (η o L/D) o decrease.…”

“…by using Equations (21) and 67, with the mid-range value being taken for R t . The results from the two methods for all the aircraft considered in this study are compared in Fig.…”