Wing shapes of Russian fighters
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special ed
1st Lieutenant
- 6,576
- May 13, 2018
Stalin said so.
GregP
Major
I'm going to guess they knew they didn't have a great high-altitude engine and wanted to maximize their low-to-medium altitude fighters. The typical Soviet triangular wing makes a good rolling platform and the lower aspect ratio and area concentrated closer to the centerline makes for a good dogfighting platform in the lower altitude region if not bungled by mistakes. The I-185 wasn't quite so triangularly pronounced, but was nontheless similarly tapered, too.
One thing about the Soviet system that stood out was that failure did not generally have a good result for the entity who failed. It was sometimes fatal, literally. When the first triangular wing platform came out and was successful, the rest of the designers likely copied the concept, thinking it would give a better probabiliity of not failing. Even the early Yakovlev jets had the same wing and same fuselage. The next breakout platform was the MiG-15 and there were several jets with the same basic layout.
I can think of the La-15, IL-40/42, IL-102, La-168, La-176, La-190, MiG-17, MiG-19, Su-15, and Yak-25 with siumilar wing layouts to the MiG-15, which was a highly successful design if ever there was one. 17,300 or so built in several countries.
The Soviet Union had decades of designers copying successful designs to help ensure they wouldn't be sent to the gulag or killed if their design failed to meet spec. It was likely a very good thing for Soviet designers of aircraft, ships, electronics, and guns when Stalin passed away.
One thing about the Soviet system that stood out was that failure did not generally have a good result for the entity who failed. It was sometimes fatal, literally. When the first triangular wing platform came out and was successful, the rest of the designers likely copied the concept, thinking it would give a better probabiliity of not failing. Even the early Yakovlev jets had the same wing and same fuselage. The next breakout platform was the MiG-15 and there were several jets with the same basic layout.
I can think of the La-15, IL-40/42, IL-102, La-168, La-176, La-190, MiG-17, MiG-19, Su-15, and Yak-25 with siumilar wing layouts to the MiG-15, which was a highly successful design if ever there was one. 17,300 or so built in several countries.
The Soviet Union had decades of designers copying successful designs to help ensure they wouldn't be sent to the gulag or killed if their design failed to meet spec. It was likely a very good thing for Soviet designers of aircraft, ships, electronics, and guns when Stalin passed away.
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What fighters are you talking about?
By the time of beginning the design of the first Soviet jet fighters (T-3, E-4) with triangular wings, Stalin had already passed away. However, it is possible that the designers still remembered his instructions...Only one thing can be said: this has nothing to do with Soviet reality, which cannot be reduced to primitive schemes.
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Especially the Lavochkin and Yakovlev fighters, but also MiG and Polikarpov and others to a lesser extent.
I had read somewhere the most aerodynamic wing was believed ro be elliptical in shape. I don't remember why. It was also very expensive to build and most designers of the time felt the cost did not justify the performance improvement. I have assumed the Soviet designers were trying to get some of the elliptical wing shape benefits while avoiding most of the construction cost penalties. I don't have anything to support that though and it could be all wrong.
Piston-engined fighters? Or jets?
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It's a common result in aerodynamics that for a given span, an elliptical spanload distribution provides the minimum induced drag. (but that doesn't necessarily mean that the wing planform itself needs to be elliptical).
Some recent research based on an old paper by Prandtl suggests a slightly different distribution might be even better. See post at What's Wrong with Flying Wings?
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
Most likely WWII aircraft, such as the MiG-1, MiG-3, Tu-2, Ar-2, Pe-2, Su-2, LaGG-3, Yak-3, Yak-7, Po-185, etc. etc. etc.
1. This wing shape is called trapezoidal with rounded wingtips. This is the term used both in Soviet documents and in technical literature.
2. Practically any wing shape of a single-engine monoplane fighter from World War II can be approximated either by a trapezoid or a combination of two trapezoids—even the elliptical wing of the Spitfire.
3. The ratio of the trapezoid bases may vary, as well as the shape of the rounded tips, but I see no fundamental difference between Soviet, German, and British fighters, as well as US Army Air Forces fighters—see the picture. I was too lazy to include Italian and French ones as well. US naval fighters are somewhat different.
4. The use of a tapered wing was probably motivated by a desire to reduce the moment of inertia. In general, when trying to understand the logic of Soviet engineers, the starting point should be that they tried to simplify the manufacturing technology as much as possible, and the possibilities for optimization based on wind tunnel tests were limited.
2. Practically any wing shape of a single-engine monoplane fighter from World War II can be approximated either by a trapezoid or a combination of two trapezoids—even the elliptical wing of the Spitfire.
3. The ratio of the trapezoid bases may vary, as well as the shape of the rounded tips, but I see no fundamental difference between Soviet, German, and British fighters, as well as US Army Air Forces fighters—see the picture. I was too lazy to include Italian and French ones as well. US naval fighters are somewhat different.
4. The use of a tapered wing was probably motivated by a desire to reduce the moment of inertia. In general, when trying to understand the logic of Soviet engineers, the starting point should be that they tried to simplify the manufacturing technology as much as possible, and the possibilities for optimization based on wind tunnel tests were limited.
GrauGeist
Generalfeldmarschall zur Luftschiff Abteilung
A Trapezoidal platform does not include Elliptical.
The Soviets tended to use a "Tapered" planform, which is not part of the Elliptical grouping.
The Spitfire, P-47 and He280 used a form of an Elliptical planform.
The Soviets tended to use a "Tapered" planform, which is not part of the Elliptical grouping.
The Spitfire, P-47 and He280 used a form of an Elliptical planform.
I surmise that in the case of the jets the planform was recommended by TsAGI. They had the mission and the resources to test planforms in that turbulent development era of the 40s and 50s. There are aircraft of different sizes and mission which have similar wings. I different classes over time. So, |MiG-15, La-15, Yak 25 stretching it to Tu-16 and -95. MiG-19 and Su-7, and that MiG which was a -21 with a -19 wing. Then the tailed delta types. MiG-21 to M-50 via Su-9 and -15
In 1943, a wind tunnel (T-106) was launched in the USSR, which allowed the study of aerodynamics at high subsonic speeds, but until 1945, swept wings were practically not studied. And all of the TsAGI's recommendations for the first Soviet aircraft with swept wings (35°) were, as far as I understand, mainly a creative interpretation of German experience. But I am not ready to produce a detailed analysis of where exactly German experience was used and where their own developments were used.
During the war, TsAGI worked under the strict control of the People's Commissariat for Aviation Industry - they were primarily responsible for making recommendations for improving production aircraft. And TsAGI's recommendations were not always well-founded - for example, according to TsAGI's recommendations, the wing loading for a fighter should not exceed 170 kg/m2, but Polikarpov had already built the I-185 with a load of more than 200 kg/m2, which surpassed all fighters created in accordance with TsAGI's recommendations! In general, TsAGI's capabilities were also quite limited, although Chaplygin managed, in an amazing way, to protect his staff from Stalin's repressions.
By the way, in Soviet publications, I came across statements (with justification) that a trapezoidal wing with a certain base ratio is practically equivalent in its properties to an elliptical wing with the same aerodynamic profile - in terms of pressure distribution, stall characteristics, etc. In other words, an elliptical wing offers only a couple of percent advantage over a trapezoidal wing like this, while the latter has incomparably simpler manufacturing technology. In the USSR, mass production of elliptical wings was hardly realistic, but the Brits could afford to spend resources for the sake of a couple of percent advantage in performance.
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