TABLE OF CONTENTS The aircraft [replacement of the SR-71A] has been seen moving at high supersonic speed, with the resultant sonic bangs, over Southern California. It is believed to be powered by a revolutionary new engine which leaves a distinctive "sausage-string" shaped contrail at high altitude, coupled with an unmistakable sound.
The Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, 1997
Aerodynamics is one of the fundamental aspects of aircraft flight. Most books on flight mechanics and performance have prominent chapters on the aerodynamics of the wing and the wing section. In view of the amount of topics to deal with in performance analysis, it will not be possible to review airfoil and wing characteristics. This chapter deals with the aerodynamics of the aircraft as a whole, particularly drag and lift characteristics as a function of the main parameters.
The aerodynamic forces and moments are not directly contributed by the propulsion system. For a symmetric aircraft in level flight, the aerodynamic forces are applied somewhere on the symmetry plane. For first-order calculations, there is a general consensus that these forces are applied at the center of gravity, as discussed in Chapter 2. In reality, the aerodynamic forces are applied at the center of pressure, which is dependent on the flight Mach number. As the aircraft accelerates past the speed of sound, the center of pressure tends to move aft. The opposite happens during deceleration to subsonic speed. The shift of the center of pressure and the consequent stability problems can be solved by...
