Didactical Tool for Wing Weight Estimation in a Preliminary Aircraft Design Stage

Aircraft preliminary design requires a lot of complex evaluations and assumptions related to design variables that are not completely known at a very initial stage. Didactical activity becomes unclear since students ask for precise values in the starting point. A tentative in providing a simple tool for wing weight estimation is presented for overcoming these common difficulties and explaining the following points: a) the intrinsic iterative nature of the preliminary design stage, b) provide useful and realistic calculation for the wing weight with very simple assumption not covered by cumbersome calculations and formulas. The purpose of the paper is to provide a didactic tool to facilitate the understanding of some steps in estimating wing weight at the preliminary design level. The problems of identifying the main variables for the initial estimation is dealt with and specifi aspects that are usually hidden by the complexity of the involved disciplines and by the usual calculation methods applied in structural design are pointed out. The procedure is addressed to highlight main steps in wing weight estimation for straight wing weight to highlight the main steps in estimating the wing weight for a general aviation straight wing aircraft at the preliminary design stage. The effect of the main variables on the wing weight variation is also presented confirming well-known results from literature and design manuals.