Design and Optimization of Tandem Wing Aircraft

A tandem aircraft configuration has two wings placed one behind the other longitudinally, with no dedicated horizontal stabilizer. Since there are two wings, high lift is obtained but also at the cost of additional structural weight and drag. In this article, a methodology is proposed to design a tandem aircraft configuration and depict the design process of the radio-controlled model. Flight test is conducted with the model to verify the stability and predicted performance. Aerodynamic optimization is conducted by using computational fluid dynamics to understand the effects of downwash from the front wing to the aft wing. In the end, a conventional aircraft is conceptually designed, which uses the same power plant configuration and the predicted performance is obtained. The predicted performance results of the tandem aircraft and the conventional aircraft are compared and the results are obtained. Compared to conventional aircraft tandem wing configuration found 13.5% shorter wingspan and 40% shorter take off roll.