How do aircraft designers determine the correct shape for a wing?
Wing shape in aircraft is determined by the purpose of the aircraft, location of the wing, and the intended speed. A supersonic aircraft will have different wing shapes than a standard commercial airplane.
Recent airplane wing design mimics nature, with gulls wing shape being mimicked by airborne drones to provide additional agility for passing between buildings and other tight locations.
Wings are designed to provide lift for the aircraft while allowing for maneuvering. This is why wings must have a flat bottom and a symmetric top and bottom.
Some of the spy planes will have a highly swept wing or simple delta wing to provide faster speed over manuevering.
Miracles
Aircraft designers determine the correct shape for a wing by figuring out what the buyer of the wing wants the wing to do. In general, people who buy aircraft want wings that provide lift as if by a miracle. Miracles are cheaper than jet fuel, you see. From a buyer’s persective, the ideal wing would haul a plane to 40,000 feet on a half-pint of vegetable oil and then hold the plane aloft until it reached its destination.
The designers are left to come up with a compromise because they lack the spiritual wherewithall to conjure an aviation miracle. They must rely on physics and fuel, and they seek a solution mixing the miraculous with the engineering.
Corner cutting
If the buyer is wants a slow airplane, the designer will engineer wings with lots of camber. Camber is the curve over the top of the wing, and it determines the wing’s thickness. A big curve will pull lots of air downward and produce lift at low speeds. So, if the buyer of a plane wanted to cut a corner and use a small engine that produced a minimal amount of power, his plane will have wings with some serious camber.
Superman fast
If, on the other hand, the buyer is the United States military, then there will be no economizing on the engine at all. Power and speed are no concern to the designer who is building the wings. A plane with a huge turbfan engine and nearly unlimited supplies of fuel needs a wing with as little camber as possible. A thin wing flies through the air cleanly and quickly allowing the plane to achieve high-speed flight, and by high-speed I mean speeds approaching Superman fast.
The designer is confronted with a trade off however. The thin wing makes high speed possible, yet the plane must still stay in the air at low speeds when a high-camber, thick wing is needed. Rather than design a wing with adjustable camber, designers build wings with greater surface area. A larger wing generates more lift, and so a thin wing with a large surface area will produce an equal amount of lift as a thick wing with a small surface area.
Twisting, barfing flight
If the designer seeks to satify a customer who desires a plane with tremendous maneuverability, the designer will make a wing with a small aspect ratio. To calculate the aspect ratio, divide the length of the wing from tip to tip by the average chord of the wing. The chord is the distance from the leading edge of the wing to the trailing edge. A low aspect ratio wing is short and stubby. Teh F-18 Hornet is a good example, as is the F-16 Fighting Falcon.
Bus ride
For the customer seeking dull, straight and level flight, the designer will construct a wing with a high aspect ratio. Gliders are good examples of plane designs with high aspect ratio wings. Commercial ariplanes also have wings with a high aspect ratio.
Sales department
In the end, the single greatest factor a designer would take into account would be the type of aiplane his sales department is able to foist onto the aviation community.
Engineers begin a wing design by identifying the purpose of the airplane and the speeds and weights that it will operate. An airplane that will fly slow may have a thick wing or a long & tapered wing. A fighter aircraft that will fly supersonic will have a thin wing and short and stubby. Then they adjust the shape of the wing to obtain the Lift and Drag and airflow that is needed for the design.
