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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
In the design of high-speed aircraft the problem of relating structure loads to a prescribed flight envelope leads very often to the necessity of airframes being considerably stronger than past experience would tend to suggest, due to the methods used in calculating the loading.
Hitherto, when dealing with subsonic flight, it has usually been sufficient to determine structural loads in manoeuvre on the basis of a rigid aircraft. That is to say, the influence of structural distortion upon the aerodynamic derivatives, which enter the load calculations, is neglected. That this assumption becomes untenable as the speed is increased is clear when it is realised that, for a given fixed loading on the wing, the distortion is fixed; whereas the incidence necessary to produce the loading is approximately inversely proportional to the square of the flight speed.