Overview

An important task in aircraft design is to make the best possible estimation of all the different types of drag associated with aircraft aerodynamics. Commercial aircraft design is sensitive to the DOC, which is aircraft-drag–dependent. Just one count of drag (i.e., CD = 0.0001) could account for several million U.S. dollars in operating cost over the lifespan of a small fleet of midsized aircraft. This will become increasingly important with the increasing trend in fuel costs. Accurate estimation of the different types of drag remains a central theme. (Equally important are other ways to reduce DOC as described in Section 2.1; these are discussed in Chapter 17.)

For a century, a massive effort has been made to understand and estimate drag, and the work is still continuing. Possibly some of the best work on aircraft drag in English is compiled by NACA/NASA, RAE, AGARD, ESDU, DATCOM, Royal Aeronautical Society (RAeS), AIAA, and others. These publications indicate that the drag phenomena are still not fully understood and that the way to estimate aircraft drag is by using semi-empirical relations. CFD (see Chapter 14) is gaining ground but it is still some way from supplanting the proven semi-empirical relations. In the case of work on excrescence drag, efforts are lagging.

The 2D-surface skin friction drag, elliptically loaded induced drag, and wave drag can be accurately estimated – together, they comprise most of the total aircraft drag.