Wing Planforms for Large Military Transports

Transport aircraft, designed for long-range military missions with heavy payloads, lead to wings with high aspect ratios and very large spans. A wing-geometry/cruise-speed optimization study was made of a large cantilever-wing military transport airplane. Preliminary design and performance evaluations were also made of a strut-braced wing airplane. Initial results obtained with statistical weights indicated small performance advantages for the cantilever-wing design. Subsequent results obtained with weights derived from detailed analytical structural analyses reversed the initial conclusions. These results indicated that unusual alternative configuration concepts cannot be discarded, based on small differences predicted during conceptual design studies.