Aircraft Cruise Drag Reduction Through Variable Camber Using Existing Control Surfaces

What is it about?

Changing the camber of an aircraft wing in flight has the potential to improve cruise efficiency. This work studies using existing control surfaces to achieve that camber variation for a small business jet. For this case variable camber reduces cruise drag by 1-5% by allowing the aircraft to fly at its optimal angle of attack over more operating points, thus allowing the fuselage to be optimally loaded, reducing induced, trim, and wave drag.

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