F. Götten, D.F. Finger, M. Havermann, C. Braun, F. Gómez, C. Bil

The flight performance impact of three different landing gear configurations on a small, fixed-wing UAV is analyzed with a combination of RANS CFD calculations and an incremental flight performance algorithm. A standard fixed landing gear configuration is taken as a baseline, while the influence of retracting the landing gear or applying streamlined fairings is investigated. A retraction leads to a significant parasite drag reduction, while also fairings promise large savings. The increase in lift-to-drag ratio is reduced at high lift coefficients due to the influence of induced drag. All configurations are tested on three different design missions with an incremental flight performance algorithm. A trade-off study is performed using the retracted or faired landing gears weight increase as a variable. The analysis reveals only small mission performance gains as the aerodynamic improvements are negated by weight penalties. A new workflow for decision-making is presented that allows to estimate if a change in landing gear configuration is beneficial for a small UAV.

Deutscher Luft- und Raumfahrtkongress 2018, Friedrichshafen

Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V., Bonn, 2018

Conference Paper

englisch

21,0 x 29,7 cm, 11 Seiten

urn:nbn:de:101:1-2018121411573397502495

10.25967/480058

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Landing Gear, UAV, Aerodynamics, CFD

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Götten, F.; Finger, D.F.; et al. (2018): On the Flight Performance Impact of Landing Gear Drag Reduction Methods for Unmanned Air Vehicles. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Luft- und Raumfahrt - Lilienthal-Oberth e.V.. (Text). https://doi.org/10.25967/480058. urn:nbn:de:101:1-2018121411573397502495.

14.12.2018