Aircraft Performance Analysis 1 CHAPTER 3 Drag Force and Drag Coefficient Mohammad Sadraey, Associate Professor College of Engineering, Technology, and Aeronautics, Southern New Hampshire University 3.1. Introduction Drag is the enemy of flight and its cost. In chapter 2, major forces that are influencing aircraft motions were briefly introduced. One group of those forces is aerodynamic forces that split into two forces: Lift force or lift, and Drag force or drag. A pre-requisite to aircraft performance analysis is the ability to calculate the aircraft drag at various flight conditions. One of the jobs of a performance engineer is to determine drag force produced by an aircraft at different altitudes, speeds and configurations. This is not an easy task, since; this force is a function of several parameters including aircraft configuration and components. As it was discussed in chapter 2, the drag is a function of aircraft speed, wing area, air density, and its configuration. Each aircraft is designed with a unique configuration, thus, aircraft performance analysis must take into account this configuration. The configuration effect of aircraft drag is represented through the drag coefficient (CD), plus a reference area that relates to the aircraft. An aircraft is a complicated three-dimensional vehicle, but for simplicity in calculation, we assume that the drag is a function a two-dimensional area and we call it the reference area. This area could be any area including tail area, wing area and fuselage cross sectional area (i.e., fuselage cross section), fuselage surface area, and even aircraft top- view area. No matter what area is selected, the drag force must be the same. This unique drag comes from the fact that the drag coefficient is a function of the reference area. Therefore, if we select a small reference area, the drag coefficient shall be large, but if we choose a large reference area, the drag coefficient shall be small. In an air vehicle with a small wing area (e.g., high-speed missile), the fuselage cross-sectional area (normal to the flow) is often considered as the reference area. However, in an aircraft with a large wing, the top-view of wing; planform area (in fact gross wing area) is often assumed to be the reference area. The measurement of this area is easy; and it usually includes the most important aerodynamic part of the aircraft. This simplified reference area is compensated with the complicated drag coefficient, as we discussed in chapter 2.