Can a Wingless Plane Achieve Lift?

[Stanley514]

In a large passenger plane wings used to create lifting force. But in order to create lifting force, body of a plane could be used as well. In order to create as much as possible lifting force you need to have as much as possible difference between upper and down streams of air. In order to slow down air under plane body bottom some straps under bottom could be made. You could even make this straps with regulated angle of air resistance. What is problem with it?

 

[NTW]

Already invented... Look in the internet for 'lifting body'...

 

[boneh3ad]

Well for starters, by putting some kind of drag-inducing features on the bottom of the body, you will certainly slow down the air, but not in the way you are thinking. The viscous drag involved is dissipative, so while you will be slowing down the air, it won't give you nearly the pressure rise you are hoping to create because it will also be removing energy from the flow and therefore the total pressure would decrease, removing a substantial portion of the available energy that would otherwise go toward increasing static pressure, which is the relevant quantity for lift. In essence, it would be remarkably inefficient to achieve lift this way. There are, as previously mentioned, lifting bodies already in use, but the body itself is shaped such that it generates enough lift to glide.

 

[Stanley514]

Already invented... Look in the internet for 'lifting body'...

Those are designed to work at supersonic speeds only, and they are claimed not always working well. They cannot go in the sky from the airstrip, instead they should be dropped from supersonic plane.

 

[boneh3ad]

Those are designed to work at supersonic speeds only, and they are claimed not always working well. They cannot go in the sky from the airstrip, instead they should be dropped from supersonic plane.

That should tell you something, though. These bodies are specifically designed to generate lift, yet they are inefficient at low speeds and require quite a bit of thrust to get sufficient lift. Compare that to your proposal and the best you can do is essentially these sorts of lifting body shapes and your idea would fall somewhere under that in terms of efficiency and feasibility. Ultimately, it's all about thrust, weight and angle of attack. Given a sufficient thrust and angle of attack, you could make a refrigerator fly, just not very efficiently. The same is true of simply removing the wings from a plane. It also wouldn't be very stable.

 

[rcgldr]

The M2-F2 (the glider version of the later rocket powered M2-F3) could glide and land reasonably well at sub-sonic speeds:

 

[Stanley514]

What if we direct jet streams from plane engines not horizontally but under certain angle? Could it help to increase lift? The total surface of large passenger plane body is large enough, it should generate plenty of lift if designed to do so, I think. Why it cannot be regarded as a narrow and long wing? What methods could be used to increase it lift a lot without sacrificing efficiency?

The M2-F2 (the glider version of the later rocket powered M2-F3) could glide and land reasonably well at sub-sonic speeds

At the beginning of this video you could see how this small plane is dropped from a large one.
And it's landing with frightening speed.

 

[boneh3ad]

What if we direct jet streams from plane engines not horizontally but under certain angle? Could it help to increase lift? The total surface of large passenger plane body is large enough, it should generate plenty of lift if designed to do so, I think. Why it cannot be regarded as a narrow and long wing? What methods could be used to increase it lift a lot without sacrificing efficiency?

Sure, thrust vectoring could increase "lift" in that it is an additional upward force on the body. If course, it would then decrease the upward force as a result of the forward motion of the plane slightly, so whether it would result in a net increase would depend on geometry. For example, the V-22 Osprey is an extreme example of this when it turns to helicopter mode for VTOL operations. As the thrust is vectored more and more vertically, there is less generated by the wings.

The surface area of the fuselage of a passenger plane is plenty to generate lift but it would require a large amount of thrust to do so and a higher angle of attack than would be otherwise desired. It would also not be very aerodynamically stable given that it is just a cylindrical tube. Like I said, you could make a refrigerator fly if you had enough thrust and angle on it.

Regarding changing it to be suitably designed to generate lift, the suitable design is the lifting body previously mentioned. The aren't optimal for the type of flight profiles common on passenger jets, but of course, the existing designs for planes are not the optimal shape, either. One of the best solutions, aerodynamically speaking, is the blended wing body, for example the X-48.

What is your goal for this idea? What motivates removing the wings?

 

[Stanley514]

What is your goal for this idea? What motivates removing the wings?

Increase in maneuverability, portability and reliability.

 

[boneh3ad]

Increase in maneuverability, portability and reliability.

I'm not sure you would gain many of those by removing the wings, to be honest. They are already portable, after all, they fly anywhere. There is no reason to put them on a flatbed or anything. I don't see how reliability would be affected. Planes are already some of the most reliable machines we make. You could certainly improve maneuverability, but why would you need to do so? Current airliners are already maneuverable enough and making them more so would simply screw with the passengers. Fighter jets are already maneuverable enough that they are pushing the limits of what a human body can handle.

 

[rcgldr]

At the beginning of this video you could see how this small plane is dropped from a large one. And it's landing with frightening speed.

It was a re-entry prototype, so it needed to be able to handle very high speeds. My guess is the landing speed was probably a bit less than the ~220 mph landing speed of the Space Shuttle, but being a small aircraft, it looks very fast.

 

[Stanley514]

It would also not be very aerodynamically stable given that it is just a cylindrical tube.

The airships have no large wings. Are they unstable?

I'm not sure you would gain many of those by removing the wings, to be honest.

There would be no chances that wing will simply fall out as it sometimes happens, a plane will not crush in other plane or building on airstrip or in the air and not scratch anything with a wing. Imagine a plane on airstrip without wings. It would have many more space to move around without fear to scratch some object.

 

[boneh3ad]

The airships have no large wings. Are they unstable?

Airships rely on an entirely different concept for flight. They are lighter-than-air vehicles, and thus use buoyancy to stay aloft and don't require large amounts of thrust to stay afloat. Planes, on the other hand, are heavier-than-air vehicles and require forward motion to stay aloft.

An airship remains stable simply due to the fact that the buoyancy force is acting at a point above the center of mass of the whole vehicle, so if it were to tip one way or the other, there is a natural restorative torque that would tend to rotate it back to its upright position. If you had just a cylinder relying on lift, orientation doesn't matter, much like a rocket, and you would need to have some kind of control surfaces to maintain stability. Presently, those control surfaces are integrated into the wings and tail. This is one of several reasons that wingless designs are not just tubes.

There would be no chances that wing will simply fall out as it sometimes happens, a plane will not crush in other plane or building on airstrip or in the air and not scratch anything with a wing. Imagine a plane on airstrip without wings. It would have many more space to move around without fear to scratch some object.

In what modern instance have the wings just fallen off of a plane? Regarding clipping objects with wings, that rarely happens and is always a result of human error. You can solve that problem by procedurally rather than structurally.

There's a reason you don't see wingless flying animals. It isn't an efficient means of flight and requires a large amount of thrust per weight to achieve compared to winged flight, so natural selection simply wouldn't allow it to evolve that way, as any organism would be simply be outcompeted by winged animals.

Also consider that the solar planes that are built these days and the planes built for long-duration flight both must be very efficient in generating lift (have a lot of lift per unit weight and thrust) in order to achieve their flight goals, and the solution there is always to make bigger wings. The stubbier the wings (or removing them entirely) is simply extraordinarily inefficient compared to winged vehicles.

 

[Stanley514]

In what modern instance have the wings just fallen off of a plane?

For example:

There's a reason you don't see wingless flying animals.

They use wings as the only way to generate thrust, therefore it is not an absolute prove.

 

[russ_watters]

For example:

That's a famous viral marketing hoax. In reality, wings ripping off of airplanes is pretty rare.

This thread needs to get more serious.

 

[boneh3ad]

For example:

That's not real, has been proven to be fake, and doesn't even look real.

 

[Stanley514]

Still an airship looks to me like an ultimate plane of the future which has nothing excessive. No wings, no large visible engines.
Here is one more design of a plane with small wings.
http://discaircraft.greyfalcon.us/LIPPISCHE AERODYNE RESEARCH.htm

 

[Simon Bridge]

... anything will fly if you throw it hard enough.
Not thrown hard enough - then I guess it could fly downwards.

You are not the only one to think airships could make a comeback - but they have serious drawbacks i.e. they are slow, difficult to manouver, strongly affected by wind, and large for their carrying capacity.

You are not the only one to think of doing away with those pesky wings...
Short or no wing aircraft are highly unstable - which makes them more manouverable (deliberately unstable designs are used for warplanes) but they tend to be small and need to go fast to work.

Redirected jet thrust, as in the Lippische or Dornier Aerodyne (artwork post #17) use another principle again - lift is produced by directing some of the engine thrust downwards. The same job is usually better done with a helecopter. The Harrier used the principle for vtol, but also used wings for regular flight.

There are lots of novel approaches to flight - the trick is to figure what problem you want to solve.
Anyway - your original question is answered: the concept in post #1 is not practical and won't fly because of drag.

Suggest you review basic aerodynamics before posting yet another concept.

 

[Stanley514]

"You are not the only one to think airships could make a comeback - but they have serious drawbacks i.e. they are slow, difficult to manouver, strongly affected by wind, and large for their carrying capacity."

I just thought to take the best from airships and planes. A levitating transport is a common element in sci/fi.
What could make ships to levitate with exception of buoyancy?

 

[Simon Bridge]

Is this a new topic?

The main, HTA "levitating" transports are maglev trains, and helicopters.
If you want vtol aircraft, here's a list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VTOL_aircraft

 

[boneh3ad]

(Quote)"You are not the only one to think airships could make a comeback - but they have serious drawbacks i.e. they are slow, difficult to manouver, strongly affected by wind, and large for their carrying capacity."(Quote)

I just thought to take the best from airships and planes. A levitating transport is a common element in sci/fi.
What could make ships to levitate with exception of buoyancy?

As of now, the best current attempt to take the best of best of both concepts is the V-22 Osprey, and that is a very recent development and something that took decades to successfully design and place into production.

The problem with your ideas is that in order to generate aerodynamic life, there has to be forward motion. In general, the less surface area you have on a heavier-than-air object, the more forward motion you need to generate sufficient lift to stay airborne. Further, the less optimal the design, the more thrust you need to overcome the additional drag, so you are getting double penalized. Helicopters (and the V-22) overcome this by using lift generated by rotary wings where the "forward" motion is coming from the rotating airfoils in the rotor so you can generate a lot of lift without much (or any) forward motion of the aircraft itself. You can simply vector thrust downward such as in the F-35, but that is less versatile and not really suitable for long-term hovering, only STOVL operations.

So I think you have to ask yourself what your goals are here? You already said you are trying to increases maneuverability, reliability and portability, but with the exception of maneuverability (which is irrelevant for airliners and already at the human body's limit for military aircraft), the other two aren't helped by your idea. Your later proposals seem to be with some other goal in mind and along a different line than your original, so I am not sure what your goal there might be. It seems like in those points you are simply trying to come up with a feasible wingless aircraft other than a helicopter, so then again, my question is "why?"

 

[Stanley514]

"so then again, my question is "why?"

In many sci-fi movies some transport manages to hover perfectly without large wings or any wings. I became curious if someday it will become possible.

 

[boneh3ad]

"so then again, my question is "why?"

In many sci-fi movies some transport manages to hover perfectly without large wings or any wings. I became curious if someday it will become possible.

Helicopters already do that, as do some small UAVs that are essentially a big fan pointed downward. If you are talking about without directing thrust downward, then the answer is no unless we were to discover some kind of anti-gravity technology, which, frankly, isn't really something about which I am prepared to speculate. It's science fiction for a reason.

 

[Stanley514]

Helicopters already do that, as do some small UAVs that are essentially a big fan pointed downward. If you are talking about without directing thrust downward, then the answer is no unless we were to discover some kind of anti-gravity technology, which, frankly, isn't really something about which I am prepared to speculate. It's science fiction for a reason.

I agree that one of the solutions is to direct a thrust downward, but the question is how to do it with the same amount of energy loss if it were the wings. And desirably without frying anyone downward. Some principally new type of reaction engine need to be invented. Something that is very efficient at zero to slow speed (if you want just to maintain the same altitude it will mean that speed is zero in vertical dimension). And something that doesn't produce some dangerous or dusty exhaust. Nothing that is already known will work. I thought about some noiseless air vibrations similar to what is created by speakers or dynamics but in ultrasonic range. Wander if it could work.

One more example of an almost wingless hypersonic jet plane.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...r-spins-control-crashes-ocean-15-seconds.html

Personally I like the design, if they would make it fly efficiently at slow speeds would be perfect plane of the next generation.

 

[cjl]

That's what Boneh3ad is trying to say though - that kind of design is not efficient at low speeds. For efficiency, you want to cause a small change in the momentum of a very large volume of air. A long pair of wings interacts with a very large volume of air even at fairly low speeds, which is why wings work so well in the first place.

 

[boneh3ad]

I agree that one of the solutions is to direct a thrust downward, but the question is how to do it with the same amount of energy loss if it were the wings. And desirably without frying anyone downward. Some principally new type of reaction engine need to be invented. Something that is very efficient at zero to slow speed (if you want just to maintain the same altitude it will mean that speed is zero in vertical dimension). And something that doesn't produce some dangerous or dusty exhaust. Nothing that is already known will work. I thought about some noiseless air vibrations similar to what is created by speakers or dynamics but in ultrasonic range. Wander if it could work.

First, given current technology, the best you are going to get is a helicopter. Second, what you are describing is impossible according to physics. If you want to maintain altitude without forward motion, you need some sort of force pushing the vehicle up. This would need to be either the reaction to a thrust directed downward, lift directed upward, or some kind of field-based body force like magnetism (thus my mention of a fictional anti-gravity drive). Both the thrust option and the lift option will result in a large amount of downwash just like with a helicopter or a STOVL-capable plane. So your only option then is to come up with some kind of upward force that does not rely on the reaction to moving a bunch of air downward.

One more example of an almost wingless hypersonic jet plane.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...r-spins-control-crashes-ocean-15-seconds.html

Personally I like the design, if they would make it fly efficiently at slow speeds would be perfect plane of the next generation.

It is impossible to make such a design fly at lower speeds efficiently. The X-51 was designed as a hypersonic propulsion test bed vehicle and cruise missile prototype and was never designed to fly at low speeds. Generating lift on such a shape, as I previously mentioned, requires a lot of forward motion. In this case, it especially relies on taking advantage of the shock waves generated to fly more efficiently, which inherently requires supersonic flight. Further, this is an unmanned vehicle that does not have the constraints of the human body placed on it.

You can't just pick a shape you like and say "if they would make it fly efficiently at slow speeds" because those shapes are already carefully designed to work at their own design points. The laws of aerodynamics require that efficient flight at subsonic and supersonic speeds requires two completely different sets of design principles. You can't just will away physics. Compare this with recent developments in efficient low-speed flight. Take the RQ-4 Global hawk, for example. These have very long wings because if you want to fly for a long time on little fuel and low speeds, you need lots of wing area. This is the opposite of very-high-speed vehicles such as the X-51, where more frontal exposed area creates much more wave drag and quickly mitigates any lift advantages with additional drag.

 

[Spike Selig]

I installed Real Flight model airplane RC flight simulation software on my computer and have been experimenting with one wing and no wing flight. I taxi the plane so that one wing hits the wind sock then taxi around and hit the other wing to knock them off. I copy flights using real flights software,. then open the copy and record it on my camera. The below one wing and no wing flight took 187 flights before one came out with good quality. The below video shows the plane flying and doing basic aerobatics with only one wing. At the end of the video, I fly through a tent and nock the other wing off. With no wings the plane takes off again flies around patern until it is facing the camera and makes a perfect landing, with again, no wings.
I have a second video of the same plane, an RC model of a Russian aerobatic Yack. This video has take off, fly by, then loops, snap spins, barrel roles, Cuban 8s, and loops, followed by and landing. All no wings. I am having the video remade by a professional videographer before I publish.
Can a plane (Radio Control model in this case) fly with no wings?? I have to say yes!

 

[boneh3ad]

I'd hardly consider RealFlight to be a sufficiently complex physics simulation to model such a thing. If it was, then why wouldn't Boeing use it to design and test all of its airplanes instead of wind tunnels and supercomputers?

 

[cjl]

To be fair though, I'd expect that you could probably make a remote control aerobatic plane work with no wings. They have an incredible power to weight ratio, so the combination of fuselage lift and simply using the prop like a helicopter rotor would probably be sufficient to fly. You'd need to figure out some method of roll control though.

 

[JBA]

Google "dirigible new technology" to see some of the most recent designs and concepts.