Design of a Wing for Formula One Category Airplanes

This paper describes the design of an International Formula One (IF1) racing airplane wing. The first step consists in the simulation of the airplane flying on the race track to obtain details about the condition in which the wing needs to be designed and optimized. The paper describes the details and formulation used to perform this simulation using parametric flight paths and a point model dynamic model. A scheme analytically obtains the control laws for the simulation with Frenet-Serret frames over the parametric flight path. Two different airplanes, with different power levels, are simulated on a typical IF1 race track to determine the range of lift coefficient in which the wing must be designed. Based on this lift coefficient range, a set of four new airfoils are designed based on the NLF0414-F airfoil. Their usage over the wing span is determined, using nonlinear lifting line method to assure that during races the wing operates inside the laminar drag bucket. Finally, this paper describes some details of the wing structural design and fabrication, as well as comparisons with predicted performance and actual performance results of two pilots during National Championship Air Races.