Student: Arthur Jan Pazik

Aircraft: Yak-3
Group: AE
Teacher: Krzysztof SIBILSKI

Mechanics of Flight II
Project No. 8
Pitching Moment of the Airplane without Horizontal Tailplane

Date: 10/10/2015

Grade: __________

8.1 Introduction
As usually in the analysis of flight properties of an aircraft, the pitching moment of the airplane at
an arbitrary point A located in the plane of symmetry of the aircraft will be presented in nondimensional form using aerodynamic coefficient:

1
2
2

In the analysis of longitudinal equilibrium, static stability and control of the aircraft the moment
and the moment coefficient will be calculated always at the center of mass .
The moment coefficient can be split into two basic parts:
=

Where:

- The moment coefficient of all parts of the airplane excluding horizontal tailplane,
- The moment coefficient of the horizontal tailplane.

8.2 Moment coefficient of the airplane without the tailplane

For large number of the classic subsonic airplanes the pitching moment coefficient + of the
in-flight aerodynamic configuration depends only on wing, fuselage (body) and wing nacelles (if
any).

A. Wing
The wing moment coefficient, for regular flight speed can be computed using following formulas:

(

.. +

2
) = 0.015 + 0.1035 0.1381472

Where:
= ..

= ..

 and are center of mass C coordinates, respectively along and perpendicular to the mean
aerodynamic chord of the wing . The coordinate is positive for low-wing airplanes (mass
center is located above the wing). and are drag and lift coefficients of the wing (not the
airplane!). The angle is called as the aerodynamic angle of attack of the wing.
= 0 =

= 4.59689

.. denotes the moment coefficient of the wing section over its aerodynamic center, .. and
.. are (non dimensional!) coordinates of the wing section aerodynamic center (see airfoil data).
Hence, we have:
= 1.85

.. = 0.015

= 4.59689 [1/] Taken form 2nd project

= 0.25

= 0.1 (Low wing airplane)

= 0.0625

1 = 0.14
2 = 0.25

.. = 0.241

3 = 0.36

= 0.462

.. = 0.041

= 0.1035

B. Fuselage (the body)

Large number of tests done in aerodynamic tunnels show that for small angles of attack the
moment coefficient of airplane's body can be calculated using following linear formula:

= ( 0 ) + ( )

Coefficients ( 0 ) and ( ) can be estimated using method described in the Appendix B of

"Dynamics of Flight" by B. Etkin and L. D. Reid, 3-rd edition, pages 335 until 337.
Hence, we have:
= 8.5
= 2.57
= 2.32
4 (Estimated from the drawing)

= 1.54
= 14.85

= 0.273

= 0.302

= 5.642 ; = 2.12 2 ; = 2.57 ; = 6.85 ; = 2.04

So

= 0.14

= 0,27 . Thanks to the graph, we can assume that

( )
= 0.15

0.0766 (It is estimated using method described in the Appendix B of "Dynamics of

(0 ) 0.013
Flight" by B. Etkin and L. D. Reid, 3-rd edition. And from the graph)
(From the graph)

8.3 Total moment coefficient

The pitching moment coefficient shall be calculated using above formulas as a function of the lift
coefficient for three different positions of center of mass C along the MAC: forward, mid and
backward (rear) position and one .
The formula below is used to calculate the total value of pitching moment coefficient:

Where is the total number of nacelles on the wing (in our case = 0).

= +

Datas have been calculated in Excel to obtain the graph as follow:

CL

XC2

XC1

XC3

-2

0,256393

0,036393

0,476393

-1,8

0,228406

0,030406

0,426406

-1,6

0,201563

0,025563

0,377563

-1,4

0,175864

0,021864

0,329864

-1,2

0,151309

0,019309

0,283309

-1

0,127898

0,017898

0,237898

-0,8

0,105631

0,017631

0,193631

-0,6

0,084507

0,018507

0,150507

-0,4

0,064528

0,020528

0,108528

-0,2

0,045692

0,023692

0,067692

0,028

0,028

0,028

0,2

0,011452

0,033452

-0,01055

0,4

-0,00395

0,040048

-0,04795

0,6

-0,01821

0,047787

-0,08421

0,8

-0,03133

0,056671

-0,11933

-0,0433

0,066698

-0,1533

1,2

-0,05413

0,077869

-0,18613

1,4

-0,06382

0,090184

-0,21782

1,6

-0,07236

0,103643

-0,24836

1,8

-0,07975

0,118246

-0,27775

-0,08601

0,133993

-0,30601

2,2

-0,09112

0,150883

-0,33312

2,4

-0,09508

0,168918

-0,35908

Airplane wing and body pitching moment coefficient for three different
positions of the center of mass
0,6
0,5
0,4
0,3

Cm_w+b

0,2

-2,5

0,1

Xc1
Xc2

0
-2

-1,5

-1

-0,5

0
-0,1
-0,2
-0,3
-0,4
-0,5

C_L

0,5

1,5

2,5

Xc3