Aircraft Performance (Rate of Climb)
Dr. Vijay Kumar Patidar
Climbing Flight
• Suppose an aircraft to be flying straight and level at some speed and altitude
and the airplane thrust and power is increased above that required for
straight and level flight.
• Then more work is being done on the aircraft than is needed to overcome
the drag, and the energy of the aircraft must increases.
• Either the kinetic energy of the potential energy or both may increase.
• If the pilot moves the control column, allowing the aircraft incidence to
change suitably, the aircraft will accelerate, absorbing the extra in
increasing its own kinetic energy, until a speed is reached at which the new
drag and thrust are in equilibrium.
• If, on the other hand, the pilot keeps the control fixed, the aircraft incidence
cannot change, and therefore the speed cannot increase. Thus the extra work
done must be absorbed in increasing the potential energy of the airplane and
the aircraft must climb to a greater altitude.
• Consider the aircraft as shown, climbing steadily with speed V along a
flight path inclined at an angle θ to the horizontal under the influence
of the lift, the drag, the weight and the engine thrust.
• Resolving forces perpendicular to the flight path
L - W cosθ = 0, L = W cosθ
• Resolving forces parallel to the flight path
T – D – W sinθ = 0,
sinθ = (T - D)/W
• Rate of climb is given by
R/C = V sinθ
Maximum angle of climb:
• For small angle:
• For jet aircraft:
• The flight velocity corresponds to maximum angle of climb:
Maximum rate of climb:
Gliding (Unpowered) Flight
• Whenever an airplane is flying such that the power required is larger
than the power available, it will descend rather than climb.
• In the ultimate situation, there is no power at all, in this case, the
airplane will be in gliding or unpowered flight.
• This will occur for a conventional airplane when the engine quits
during flight (e.g. engine failure or running out of fuel)
• In case of unpowered glider and sailplanes “A glider is a crude low
performance unpowered aircraft”).
• Gliding flight is special case of our previous considerations dealing
with climb.
• The force diagram for an unpowered aircraft in descending flight as
shown. For unaccelerated descent, where θ is the equilibrium glide
angle.
L = W cosθ
D = W sinθ
• The equilibrium glide angle can be
Calculated as:
• Clearly the glide angle is strictly function of L/D ratio, the higher L/D
ratio, the shallow the glide angle.
• For an aircraft at an given altitude h, this is the case for maximum
horizontal distance covered (maximum range).
• The equilibrium glide angle θ does not depend on altitude, or wing
loading, it simply depends on L/D ratio.
• To achieve a given L/D at a given altitude, the aircraft must fly at a
specified velocity V, called the equilibrium glide velocity.
• Consider again the case for a minimum glide angle. L/D must be
maximum (minimum drag condition).
• For typical modern airplane (L/D)max is 15, and for this case
minimum glide angle is 3.8 degree.
• The rate of descent sometimes called sink rate, is the downward
vertical velocity of the airplane. It is for unpowered aircraft, the analog
of rate of climb for powered flight.
• Therefore rate of descent: Vv = V sinθ
• Rate of descent is a positive number in downward direction, therefore
D V = W V Sinθ = W Vv
Vv = (D V/W)
• D V is simply the power required in straight in level flight.
• Minimum sink rate occurs at minimum power required.
• Sink rate can be calculated as:
• For small sink angle cosθ = 1:
Service and absolute ceilings
• How high can an airplane fly in steady, level flight? The answer is
straightforward – that altitude where the maximum rate of climb is
zero is the highest altitude achievable in steady, level flight. This
altitude is define as absolute ceiling.
• A more useful quantity is the service
ceiling, conventionally defined as that
altitude where maximum rate of climb
is 100 ft/sec. The service ceiling
represents the practical upper limit
for the straight and level flight.
