Introduction to Flight

Shiva Prasad U
Assistant Professor
Department of Aeronautical Engineering
Guru Nanak Engineering College Hyderabad
 Introduction to Flight

I B.Tech Aeronautical
Unit –I Historical Evaluation
Text Books-1)Introduction to Flight
- Jr.Anderson
2) flight with out formulae
-A.C. Kermode
 Syallabus
• HISTORICAL EVALUTION
Early airplanes, Multi planes, biplanes and
monoplanes, Developments in
aerodynamics, materials, structures and
propulsion over the years.
 Index
Unit -1 PPT Slides

Sr. No Module as per Session Planner Lecture No PPT Slide No

 Early Airplanes L-1 L-1-1 to L-1-2

 Airship L-2 L-2-1 to L-2-2
 Multiplane L-3 L-3-1 to L-3-1
 Triplane L-4 L-4-1 to L-4-2
 Biplane L-5 L-5-1 to L-5-2
 Monoplane L-6 L-6-1 to L-6-2
 Developments In Aerodynamics L-7 L-7-1 to L-7-2
 Developments In Materials L-8 L-8-1 to L-8-4
 Development of Aircraft Structures L-9 L-9-1 to L-9-3
 Propulsion over the years L-10 L-10-1 to L-10-8
 Early Airplanes
• First manned flight
• Montgolfier brothers' balloon at the
London Science Museum
• The first clearly recorded instance of a balloon
carrying passengers used hot air to generate
buoyancy and was built by the brothers Joseph-
Michel and Jacques-Etienne Montgolfier in
Annonay, France. After experimenting with
unmanned balloons and flights with animals, the
first tethered balloon flight with humans on board
took place on October 19, 1783 with the scientist
Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, the manufacture
manager, Jean-Baptiste Réveillon and , at the
Folie Titon in Paris. The first free flight with human
passengers was on November 21, 1783.
• King Louis XVI had originally decreed that
condemned criminals would be the first pilots, but
de Rozier, along with Marquis Francois d'Arlandes
, successfully petitioned for the honor.
Montgolfier Hot Air Balloon
 Airship
• An airship or dirigible is a
lighter-than-air aircraft that can be steered and
propelled through the air using rudders and
propellers or other thrust. Unlike other
aerodynamic aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft
and helicopters, which produce lift by moving a
wing or airfoil through the air, aerostatic
aircraft, such as airships and hot air balloons,
stay aloft by filling a large cavity, such as a
balloon, with a lifting gas. A Zeppelin is a brand
name for rigid airships historically built by
either the Luftschiff Zeppelin company of
Germany or the Goodyear Zeppelin company of
the USA, and now of smaller semi-rigid airships
built by Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik, also of
Germany.
Airship
 Multiplane
• Multiplanes
• Aircraft with four or more sets of wings are
even rarer. Extreme examples include
multiplanes designed by Horatio Phillips, one
of which had two hundred sets of wings.
Another example is the Caproni Ca.60, a one-
off transatlantic seaplane, which had three
sets of triplane wings taken from
Caproni Ca.4 bombers. There was also the
tetra-winged (four-winged)
Supermarine Nighthawk, designed to shoot
down zeppelins, that never entered
production.
Triplane
 Triplane
• A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three
sets of wings, each roughly the same size and
mounted one above the other.
• Typically, the lower set of wings would be level with
the underside of the aircraft's fuselage, the middle
set level with the top of the fuselage, and the top set
supported above the fuselage on struts.
• The first triplane was designed in 1908 by
Ambroise Goupy and built by Blériot, flown with a 37
kW (50 hp) Renault engine.
• Triplanes have greater wing area than biplanes and
monoplanes of similar wing span and chord,
potentially offering increased lift and tighter turning
radii.
Biplane
 Biplane
• A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main
wings. The first powered heavier-than-air aircraft, the
Wright brothers' Wright Flyer, used a biplane design,
as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation.
While a biplane wing structure has a structural
advantage, it produces more drag than a similar
monoplane wing. Improved structural techniques
and materials, as first pioneered by Hugo Junkers in
1915, and the need for greater speed, made the
biplane configuration obsolete for most purposes by
the late 1930s.
Monoplane
 Monoplane
• A monoplane is an aircraft with one main set
of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or
triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the
"ordinary" form for a fixed wing aircraft.
• The term parasol monoplane, is more or less
obsolete - it used to be applied to a high-
wing monoplane, especially one where the
wing was mounted well above the fuselage.
 What is Aerodynamics?
Aerodynamics is branch of science which
deals with the branch of the larger field of
fluid dynamics that deals with the motion
of air and other gaseous fluids.
• It concerns the forces that these gaseous
fluids, and particularly air, exert on bodies
moving through it. Without the science of
aerodynamics, modern flight would be
impossible.
 Developments In Aerodynamics
• The word “aerodynamics” itself was not officially
documented until 1837. However, the observation of
fluids and their effect on objects can be traced back to
the Greek philosopher Aristotle in 350 B.C. Aristotle
conceived the notion that air has weight and observed
that a body moving through a fluid encounters
resistance.
• Archimedes, another Greek philosopher, also has a
place in the history of aerodynamics. A hundred years
later, in 250 B.C., he presented his law of floating bodies
that formed a basic principle of lighter-than-air vehicles.
• The next contribution to aerodynamics did not occur
until the end of the 1400s. In 1490, the Italian
painter, sculptor, and thinker Leonardo da Vinci
began documenting his aerodynamic theories and
ideas for flying machines in personal notebooks. An
avid observer of birds and nature, he first believed
that birds fly by flapping their wings, and thought
that this motion would have to occur for manmade
aircraft to rise.
• He designed several ornithopters—machines that
were intended to copy the action of a bird's wing
with the muscle power being supplied by man.
• Scientists working in the 17th century contributed
several theories relating to drag. The Italian
mathematician and inventor Galileo Galilei built on
Archimedes' work and discovered that the drag
exerted on a body from a moving fluid is directly
proportional to the density of the fluid.
Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design.
• In 1673, the French scientist Edme Mariotte
demonstrated that drag is proportional to the
square of the velocity of an object (D µ V2).
Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens
had been testing this theory since 1669 and
published his results with the same
conclusion in 1690. The English scientist
and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton
presented a derivation of the drag equation
of a body in 1687: Drag µ ρSV2 (where ρ is
density and S is cross-sectional surface
area of the body).
• Isaac Newton was one of the
greatest scientific geniuses of all
time and contributed to every
major area of science and
mathematics of his generation. He
demonstrated that the universe ran
according to natural laws that were
understandable.
Bernoulli's Principle is a physical phenomenon that was named after the Swiss
scientist Daniel Bernoulli who lived during the eighteenth century. Bernoulli

studied the relationship of the he speed of a fluid and pressure.

» Bernoulli's Principle (top) says that increased air velocity

produces decreased pressure.
» Lift (bottom) is produced by an airfoil through a combination of
decreased pressure above the airfoil and increased pressure
beneath it.
Daniel Bernoulli (1700- Flow over an Airfoil
1782)
• Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, also an
associate of Bernoulli, derived equations from
Bernoulli's and d'Alembert's principles. The most
famous of these became known as “Bernoulli's
Principle.” It states that, in a flowing fluid, as velocity
increases, pressure decreases. This became a key
concept for understanding how lift is created. Euler
also introduced equations for fluid flow, though at the
time they could not be solved and applied.
• Italian mathematician Joseph Lagrange and French
mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace studied Euler's
findings and tried to solve his equations. In 1788,
Lagrange introduced a new model for fluid flow as
well as new equations for calculating velocity and
pressure. In 1789, Laplace developed an equation
that would help solve Euler's equations. It is still used
in modern aerodynamics and physics. Laplace also
successfully calculated the speed of sound.
• In addition to these theoretical
advancements, experiments in
aerodynamics were also producing more
practical results. In 1732, the French
chemist Henri Pitot invented the Pitot tube,
a device that enables the calculation of
velocity at a point in a flowing fluid. This
would help explain the behavior of fluid
flow.
 Developments In Materials
• Aircraft are obviously made up of different types
of materials. Everything from plastics to metal
alloys to composites. Most commercial aircraft
nowadays are excellent examples of the
advancements and developments in standard
materials.
• All of these materials have seen incredible
improvements and refinements over the past
100 years. These recent advancements have
been unheard of in any time in human history.
• So here is a slightly digested version
of basic engineering materials
available out there.
• Basically all materials are organized
into large groups or classes in the
following way:
• 1) Ceramics/Glasses
• 2) Metals
• 3) Polymers/Elastomers
• 4) Composites
Ceramics/Glasses
• Ceramics cover a wide range of materials that
are usually very stiff, have very low ductility or
formability, usually are very abrasion
resistant, retain their strength and properties
at very high temperatures, and also are quite
corrosion resistant.
Metals
• Metals are malleable and ductile (meaning
they can be shaped), can be alloyed and
chemically altered to almost any level of
strength and stiffness, they can be tailored to
have high temperature resistance, are easily
heat treated and tempered, and usually very
easy to machine and process.
Polymers/Elastomers
• We'll quickly go over the other HUGE group of
materials called polymers. Polymers have probably
been the fastest growing group of materials ever.
Think about the fact of how plastics, vinyl's,
rubbers, etc. etc. have been integrated into
everyone's life and then think back about 50 to
75 years ago and realize that they were basically
completely non existent. .
Composites
• The final big group of materials are called
composite materials. They are called this for
obvious reasons in the fact that they are
composites or mixtures of the other material
groups to make very specialized materials
 Development of Aircraft Structures

• The very early airplanes were built from very

lightweight materials such as bamboo, wood, and
fabric. They were designed much like bridges, with
beam and truss construction.
• The wings on the Wright Flyer form a truss; the two
wings used wires and bars diagonally (at an angle)
to strengthen the wing against aerodynamic forces.
• The insides of wings were also a type of truss
construction.
• The bars inside were called spars. Wires were used
on the diagonals to strengthen the wing.
• The spars, plus the spar caps at each end, were
shaped to give the wing aerodynamic features.
This shape is often called the airfoil. The figure
below shows the basic construction of the wing
of the Sopwith Camel, World War I fighter.
The figure below shows the basic construction of the wing
of the Sopwith Camel, World War I fighter.

• As manufacturing techniques for

metals improved in the early 1900's,
metal rods and pieces began to
replace the wooden components in
airplanes. Metal skins, rolled very
thin, were used because they were
less affected by weather than the
fabric skins. The ribs and spars of
the plane were made by riveting
many pieces together. When
aluminum alloys became available at
the end of the 1920's, ribs and spars
were often stamped (cut) out of
whole aluminum sheets.
 Propulsion over the years
• Unpowered
• Some types of aircraft, such as balloons,
kites and gliders, do not have any
propulsion.
• Gliders gain their initial flying speed from
some launch mechanism, and then gain
additional energy from gravity and from
updrafts such as thermal currents. The first
practical, controllable example was designed
and built by the British scientist and pioneer
George Cayley who is universally recognized
as the first aeronautical engineer.
Man power
 Man power
• The earliest designs used man power
to give dirigible balloons some degree
of control, and go back to
Jean-Pierre Blanchard in 1784.
Attempts to achieve heavier-than-air
manpowered flight did not succeed
until Paul MacCready's
Gossamer Condor in 1977.
• Gossamer Albatross, a
human-powered aircraft
 Powered
• The first powered flight was made in a
steam-powered dirigible by Henri Giffard in 1852.
Attempts to marry a practical lightweight
steam engine to a practical fixed-wing airframe did
not succeed until much later, by which time the
internal combustion engine was already dominant.
• From the first powered aeroplane flight by the
Wright brothers until World War II, propellers turned
by the internal combustion piston engine were
virtually the only type of propulsion system in use.
Propellers
• Turbine engines need not be used as jets
(see below), but may be geared to drive a
propeller in the form of a turboprop.
• Some turboprop designs (see below)
mount the propeller directly on an engine
shaft, and are called propfans.
• Jet propulsion
• Air-breathing jet engines provide thrust
by taking in air, burning it with fuel in a
combustion chamber, and accelerating
the exhaust rearwards so that it ejects at
high speed. The reaction against this
acceleration provides the engine thrust.
• Consequently, nearly all high-speed and high-
altitude aircraft use jet engines.
• other designs include the crude pulse jet, high-
speed ramjet and the still-experimental
supersonic-combustion ramjet or scramjet
Helicopters
• The rotor of a Helicopter may, like a propeller,
be powered by a variety of methods such as an
internal-combustion engine or jet turbine. Tip
jets, fed by gases passing along hollow rotor
blades from a centrally-mounted engine, have
been experimented with. Attempts have even
been made to mount engines directly on the
rotor tips.
Other Forms Of Propulsion
• Rocket-powered aircraft have
occasionally been experimented with,
and the Messerschmitt Komet fighter
even saw action in the Second World
War.
• Since then they have been restricted to
rather specialised niches, such as the
Bell X-1 which broke the sound barrier
(rockets carry their own oxidant).
• The flapping-wing ornithopter is a
category of its own. These designs may
have potential, but no practical device
has been created beyond research
prototypes.
 References:

• http://en.wikipedia.org
• http://wings.avkids.com/Book
• www.sdsefi.com
• www.quest-global.com
• www.centennialofflight.gov