Conceptual Aircraft Design

7Aircraft Statistics, Configuration Choices and Layout

7.1 Overview

The design considerations of aircraft components, for example, the wings, empennages, fuselages, nacelle pods, intakes and associated systems, are presented in Chapters 4–6 to generate boilerplate templates of aircraft configurations at the conceptual stage. This chapter progresses to the next phase to see aircraft as a whole, all components assembled from the available multitude of options to generate possible preliminary candidate configuration for a new aircraft project with given requirements and specifications. A large number of various types of aircraft configurations are included in this chapter for the readers to examine the options available. These large varieties of configurations should assist in some creative thinking on how to combine the various options of aircraft components. This is the last chapter in Part I, serving as the prerequisite information to carry out the aircraft design exercises dealt with in Chapter 8 (Part II). Chapter 7 gives configuration choices and supporting statistics, and details pertinent to aircraft configuration. Undercarriages and power‐plants are dealt with separately in Chapters 9 and 10.

During the last century, many aircraft configurations have appeared in their time; today, most of those are not relevant to the current practices. One good example is the Douglas DC3 Dakota manufactured in its thousands. Older designs, no matter how good they were, cannot compete with ...