Aviation Stack Exchange
Aviation Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [aircraft-design]

Questions about the different choices that aircraft designers (typically aerospace engineers) make in order to create an aircraft.

Aircraft design describes the different choices that aircraft designers (typically aerospace engineers) make when creating an aircraft. Most choices are a compromise between multiple important goals in the design of an aircraft.

This tag should be used for questions about:

  • The positive and/or negative factors of a particular design
  • Differences between two different designs
2691 questions
67
votes
5 answers

What determines the maximum altitude a plane can reach?

What factors determine the maximum altitude for a plane? Is it limited by wing design, engine thrust, and so on? Is there a formula by which one can calculate the maximum altitude a plane can reach?
Vido
  • 761
  • 1
  • 5
  • 4
65
votes
3 answers

Do any airplanes really have this piece Tom Cruise is hanging onto in this movie?

The piece Tom Cruise is holding onto on this moving plane seems useless as a component, maybe even inductive of drag. Is this a real airplane component, or just a film prop? I don't know the model of the airplane; I'm hoping maybe the shape is…
J.Todd
  • 681
  • 1
  • 5
  • 8
58
votes
6 answers

How can this aircraft be stable/maneuverable?

The new wave of electric VTOL aircraft concepts (Joby Aviation, Zee, Lilium, Airbus A$^3$, etc...) has produced some audacious unconventional designs. Now my question, is how Lilium's concept can be stable and/or maneuverable, given the following…
mezzanaccio
  • 1,739
  • 1
  • 15
  • 23
41
votes
7 answers

Why are airplanes riveted and not screwed?

Replacing airframe panels and inspecting hard-to-reach parts would be easier with screws, I presume. So why are rivets used?
yippy_yay
  • 7,365
  • 14
  • 52
  • 67
40
votes
2 answers

Why are the pitot tubes on supersonic combat aircraft so long?

I've noticed that on combat aircraft the forward (nose-mounted) pitot tube is usually very long, on the order of half a meter to well over a meter on some aircraft. Why are they so long? Surely the body of the aircraft is not disturbing the air in…
dotancohen
  • 6,357
  • 4
  • 33
  • 55
39
votes
5 answers

Why do large aircraft have their engines mostly on the wings, while smaller ones tend to have them in the tail or the tip?

Large passenger planes almost always have their engines hanging from the wings, Fighters usually have them in the rear, and small Cessnas have them on the nose. What is the reason for these variations in design?
yippy_yay
  • 7,365
  • 14
  • 52
  • 67
35
votes
5 answers

Why were the first airplanes "backwards"?

In the question Is the location of an aircraft spoiler really that vital? the accepted answer states "Surfaces behind the CoG act as stabilisers, keeping the nose pointing forward. An aeroplane has vertical and horizontal tail surfaces at the back…
CGCampbell
  • 11,077
  • 16
  • 71
  • 122
32
votes
6 answers

Why do passenger aircraft have the little airjets over each seat?

I never turn them on, but I do turn them off if I notice them. Is this a relic from the age when people lit up next to you and you wanted to blow away the smoke? The system must weigh almost a ton on a large aircraft and seems pretty unpopular and…
yippy_yay
  • 7,365
  • 14
  • 52
  • 67
30
votes
5 answers

How "over-engineered" were old planes and how "over-engineered" are they now that we have more advanced testing and research options?

I've seen several times on shows on television, and even talking to older pilots, where they will tell me that old planes were "over-engineered" to add some margin for errors on the designed engineering calculations. Of course, no specifics are…
Canuk
  • 8,442
  • 7
  • 47
  • 89
28
votes
3 answers

How can a passenger have opened an emergency exit on an Airbus A321 in flight?

Today it has been reported that a passenger managed to open the emergency exit door of an A321 in-flight. According to the report the aircraft (performing flight OZ-8124 from Jeju to Daegu in South Korea) was descending towards Daegu when a left…
DeltaLima
  • 83,202
  • 11
  • 272
  • 366
28
votes
6 answers

What is the smallest manned aircraft with four engines?

What is the smallest (by operating empty mass) quad-engine aircraft that satisfies these conditions? Current or past airplane aircraft with fixed wings, not a rotorcraft, not a lighter than air, etc 4 engines, pistons or turbines fuel as a main…
mins
  • 72,728
  • 27
  • 308
  • 441
26
votes
5 answers

Why are no recent small aircraft designed to be "characteristically incapable of spinning" as the Ercoupe was?

I'm a student pilot at a flight school that primarily flies RV-12s as a trainer. We had one day that through a booking error meant that all the RV-12s were booked so we had to use their Ercoupe 415-C instead. I was surprised at how easy the plane…
Burke9077
  • 433
  • 4
  • 8
26
votes
9 answers

Has a fixed-wing aircraft ever been built that featured multiple turbines powering a single propeller?

Has a fixed-wing aircraft ever been conceived, prototyped or built that features multiple turbines powering a single propeller? The concept of a twin-engine aircraft with a single propeller is intriguing to me. Picturing something like a Pilatus…
ryan1618
  • 14,900
  • 31
  • 102
  • 187
25
votes
5 answers

Which aircraft have made notable use of lateral asymmetry?

I'm asking about functional asymmetry - doors on one side but not the other wouldn't count. Examples I can think of three examples: experiments with oblique wing designs, such as NASA's utterly hideous AD-1, designed apparently by Burt…
Daniele Procida
  • 12,858
  • 2
  • 51
  • 94
23
votes
8 answers

Could a blown wing ever be powerful enough to lift an aircraft at zero forward velocity?

Theoretically, could an aircraft, using any manner of self generated air flow over the (fixed) wing, ever gain enough lift in order to take off (or just simply lift off the ground) at zero forward velocity? I am guessing that if an aircraft and its…
Russ Boys
  • 231
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
1
2 3
…
16 17