AE3211-I Systems Engineering and

Aerospace Design
• Introduction to the Aircraft content of the course
• Aircraft balance

Dr. Fabrizio Oliviero (FPP)

Delft
University of
Technology
AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 1
Challenge the future
Introducing aircraft design part

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 2

Course schedule
The Course is about inflecting (and use) “System Engineering” for the design of Aerospace Products:
therefore you can expect a variety of topics covered during 9 lectures.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 3

Motivation
Motivation for the overall AE3211-I course:
• Complete what you need to design spacecraft and aircraft systems!
• Understand how the elements from previous courses fit into a coherent framework of
how to engineer a complex aerospace product!
• Get prepared for the Design Synthesis Exercise!
• Appreciate the use of Systems Engineering (not only for aerospace products!)

See lecture 1 by Prof. Gil

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 4

Motivation -2
Motivation for this specific a/c design oriented module:
• Complete what you need to design spacecraft and aircraft systems!
• Understand how the elements from previous courses fit into a coherent framework of
how to engineer a complex aerospace product! to perform conceptual design of
aircraft
• Get prepared for the Design Synthesis Exercise!
• Appreciate the use of Systems Engineering through aircraft application examples
of:
• Requirements and Functional analysis
• Management of iterations in the design process

SE is a good recipe to make a good product, but it is essential to understand and know the ingredients

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 5

Functions identification

Function Sub-function System Sub system

Efficiently @ cruise Airfoil and wing planform

Generate lift
Max lift @ low speed Wing HLDs

Roll control Change in bank angle

Aileron

Vertical equilibrium Sustain loads EOW Structural weight

System engineering problems:

• How to determine all the necessary (sub)functions?
• How to identify the needed systems?
• How to size properly the systems?

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 6

Functions identification
Function Systems

Weight and balance Masses (already done in

AE2111)
Stability
CG location

Controllability Tail

Landing gear

• All these aspect will be faced first for the longitudinal plane characteristics
• Then we will characterize them also for the lateral-directional motions.
• We will not dive (too much…) into physics but we will try to determine possible design strategies

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 7

Relevance of weight&balance in a/c design

Complex or complicated? (see lecture 1)

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 8
Study material
• Lecture presentations
• Additional presentations will be available on BS
• Books on Aircraft Design previously cited in AE1222 and AE2111

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 9

A note on the notes*…

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 10

Contents & Learning Objectives of the Lecture

• Introduction and overall overview of the Aircraft Design part

• Weight&balance
• Definition
• Determine the Center of Gravity (CoG) for the empty Operative Weight (EOW) condition
• Definition of the loading diagram: Examine the effect of loading fuel and Payload on the
balance of the aircraft
• Distinguish about W&B for design and W&B for operations

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 11

Balance of the aircraft
Definition and assessment of the c.g. position of the empty aircraft

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 12

Previously…
During AE2111-II you learnt to predict the EOW through class II estimation methods.

• A typical class II method combines relevant geometry and load parameters (Nz) and corrective
coefficient to calculate weight of components

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 13

Applying Class II methods
Already remarked that the computation of the weight is a (doubled!) iterative process.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 14

Fundamentals
Balance, stability, manoeuvrability aspect deal with moments around aircraft important poles. We will focus our
attention on the longitudinal plane, but same approaches will be applied on lateral and directional aspects.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 15

Main moments and forces in the longitudinal plane

• The CoG or (C.G.) is the point where the inertial forces are applied
• The Center of Pressure is the point where the resultant of the pressure distribution is applied (and the
aerodynamic moment is nihil around this point)
• The Aerodynamic Center (or Focus) is the point where the aerodynamic moment is constant at varying
the Angle of attack. It is usually positioned along the Mean Aerodynamic Chord!

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 16

Relevance of stability and control in a/c design
From a functional analysis perspective, the design should ensure in every (non) flight condition:

the equilibrium of moments (i.e. TRIM)

that the equilibrium is stable

that the aircraft can be maneuvered with the right amount of force

Note that the requirements associated to these functions usually come from regulations.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 17

The balance of the aircraft
While the c.g. of the empty aircraft is more or less fixed, variation in fuel and payload can generate large
variations of the c.g. position* both from mission to mission but also during a single mission

However, airplane must be designed to guarantee safety and full

functionality…

• …for the whole range of c.g. positions,

• …both in flight… 𝑋
• …and on the ground. 𝑋 𝐶𝐺 𝑓𝑤𝑑

𝑋 𝐶𝐺
Balancing the aircraft is about managing and/or dealing with*
the position of the c.g. in order to guarantee safety and full 𝑋 𝐶𝐺 𝑎𝑓𝑡

𝐷𝐴𝑇𝑈𝑀
functionality during all the operations.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 18

The balance of the aircraft

During design, the balance of the aircraft is generally achievable by one or all of the following:

• Longitudinal position of the wing with respect to the fuselage*

• Size and position of the horizontal tail
• Distribution and location of systems and payload on the fuselage
• Location of landing gears
• Implementation of a control system for the fuel flow
• Prescription of limits on the loading procedure

…and during groung operation? How can the aircraft be balanced?

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 19

The aircraft balance process during the design
A typical design approach to balance the aircraft consists of the following steps:
1. Determine the center of gravity position of the aircraft at operative empty weight*, for the
assumed tail size and longitudinal wing position
2. Add the c.g. variations caused by non fixed items, such as payload (pax and freight) and
fuel*.  Loading diagrams.
3. Check the maximum c.g. range against the allowable most aft and most forward c.g.
position**.  X-plot
4. If necessary, adjust the tail size*** and longitudinal wing position, and iterate from
point 1

loading diagram
X-plot
AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 20
The process of aircraft balance (during the design)

Evaluate the
Calculate the Build the
Calculate the effects of
CG of variables loading
CG of the EOW design
masses diagram
parameters

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 21

The OEW c.g. position
To compute the c.g. position of the operative empty aircraft, it is necessary to know the location of all
the weight components with respect to the aircraft reference system.
We rely again on Class II components CG estimation similarly to the weight estimation procedures.

Example of component c.g. location information (source Roskam)

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 22

Example of component c.g. location information

Fuselage CG: only structure +systems (the engine is always excluded)*

Tail**:

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 23

Example of component c.g. location information

Wing (including movables and Nacelle:

systems, no fuel):

Engine:

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 24

The aircraft balance process. The OEW c.g. position
To control the c.g. of the empty aircraft moving the wing position with respect to the fuselage, it is
convenient to arrange the various weight components into a fuselage group and a wing group

 x W CGi i
xCGOEW  i

W i
i

The first balancing of the aircraft occurs early in the design phase where the most important variable
to be decided is the longitudinal location of the main wing.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 25

The aircraft balance process. The OEW c.g. position

What’s in the FUSELAGE GROUP? What’s in the WING GROUP?

All parts that are somehow fixed to the • wing structure with movables and systems
fuselage or generally related to it, that is: • wing mounted engines** with fuel
systems
• Furnished fuselage with systems • The main landing gear - even when
• Fuselage mounted engines physically attached to the fuselage!
• Tail Why?
• Nose wheel The position of the landing gear, as the
position of the wing, affects not only the CG
position but also the CG limits due to
clearance and stability requirements during
NO main landing gear, which is typically ground operations.
positioned with respect to the wing MAC*
The main landing gear is positioned relatively to the
wing (i.e. to the wing a.c.) , typically at 45-50%
MAC, to guarantee ease of rotation at take off.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 26

The aircraft balance process. The OEW c.g. position
To obtain small tail loads, the center of gravity is always located close to the wing aerodynamic center (a.c.):
therefore, it is convenient to express the c.g. location (Xcg) in %MAC* (neglecting the effect of the wing twist).

mac

𝑋 𝐿𝐸 𝑚𝑎𝑐 𝑋 𝐶𝐺 − 𝑋 𝐿𝐸𝑚𝑎𝑐
𝑋 𝐶𝐺 =
𝑚𝑎𝑐
𝑋 𝐶𝐺

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 28

 The aircraft balance process. The OEW c.g. position
The first step consists in the identification of an initial longitudinal wing-fuselage setting.
A “first attempt” wing position (XLEMAC) can be estimated based on known OEW c.g. positions (XOE) from
reference aircraft, as follow*:
𝑊𝑊𝐺
𝑋 𝐿𝐸𝑀𝐴𝐶 =𝑥𝐶𝐺 𝐹𝐺 − 𝑥 𝐶𝐺 𝑂𝐸 + (𝑥 − 𝑥 𝐶𝐺 𝑂𝐸 )
𝑊 𝐹 𝐺 𝐶𝐺 𝐹𝐺

c.g.@ OEW 20-25% 35-40% 25-30%

(%MAC):

Alternatively, if the initial location of the wing is already known/determined by previous requirements, the
CG@EOW can be calculated by the classic multi-body system
AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 29
Generation of the aircraft loading diagrams
How to load an aircraft…when you don’t have an aircraft (yet)

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 30

The loading diagram
Possible shifts of the CoG can be caused by the loading of:

• Passengers
• Fuel
• Cargo

The CoG can be different for each mission but is varies during a mission (burning fuel)

How can we calculate those possible position?

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 31
The loading diagram
Once the position of the aircraft c.g. @ OEW is known, cargo, passengers and fuel are loaded
until MTOW has been reached.
During loading, the c.g. of the aircraft will vary as shown in this graph, called the loading
diagram (or potato diagram).
45000

43000

41000 window seats

aisle seats
39000

Goal of the diagram is

middle seat
fuel

to assess the maximum

37000
cargo

mass [kg]
c.g. range* of the
35000

aircraft 33000

31000

29000

27000

25000
0.100 0.150 0.200 0.250 0.300 0.350 0.400
xcg [mac]

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 32

The cargo loading diagram
This graph is relative to a passengers aircraft with 2 cargo holds (front and rear).

In this case the cargo has been represented as two concentrated masses.

However, when the cargo is arranged in many unit loading

devices, it is better to consider the effect of each unit load
device separately.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 33

The passenger loading
Usually we rely on a statistical prediction of the passenger
distribution normally managed by the different airliners.
The “window seating rule” can be adopted.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 34

The fuel loading diagram
For simplicity we can assume that the fuel c.g. is located in correspondence of the tank c.g.

However different and separated fuel tanks can be

installed in a wing and a fuel flow control system can
be used to manage the tanks emptying sequence.

Keeping fuel at the tip of the wing increases the

bending relief action.

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 35

The loading diagram
This is the loading diagram of a passengers aircraft.

45000 Use a 2% margins to account

MTOW for the c.g. variations caused by
43000
passengers and attendants
41000 window seats
moving, landing gear retracting,
aisle seats
food and drinks served, etc.
MZFW 39000
middle seat
fuel
37000
cargo
mass [kg]

35000

33000

31000

29000

27000

OEW 25000
Calculated with
0,000 0,050 0,100 0,150 0,200 0,250 0,300 0,350 0,400
class II methods
xcg [mac]

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 36

The loading diagram

Centered. The most convenient, because of the small c.g. range

Tilted forward. The OEW c.g. is quite close to the tail, due to the
aft fuselage mounted engines. Passengers and fuel shift the c.g.
strongly forward. More difficult to balance

Tilted backward. The OEW c.g. is slightly close to the nose, due to
the forward wing mounted engines. Passengers shift c.g. backward.
Less difficult to balance due to the longer tail arm

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 37

The loading diagram
The extreme front and aft c.g. position must be compatible with the limits dictated by aircraft
controllability and stability, both in flight* and on the ground

45000

43000

The ground controllability and

41000 window seats
aisle seats
39000
middle seat stability limits on flights
37000
fuel depend on the tail (or canard)
cargo
size and positioning
mass [kg]

35000

33000
The ground controllability and
31000
stability limits depend on the
29000 landing gear positioning
27000

25000
0,000 0,050 0,100 0,150 0,200 0,250 0,300 0,350 0,400

xcg [mac]

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 38

Effect of longitudinal wing shift

In order to affect the c.g. range (i.e., the position of the most fore and aft c.g), the designer has the
opportunity to modify the longitudinal position of the wing (group) with respect to the fuselage.

To study how the c.g. ranges changes with the longitudinal wing position, we can generate 3 loading diagrams
for 3 different wing positions (expressed in terms of XLEMAC/lfuselage ratios):

• Position 1. (the one used for the initial tail sizing)

• Slightly forward wing positioning (e.g. position 1 -10%)
• Slightly backward wing positioning (e.g. position 1 +10%)

Finally, a plot can be generated that describes the c.g. range variations for different longitudinal position of
the wing w.r.t. the fuselage (XLEMAC/lfuselage vs. Xcg/MAC)

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 39

Effect of longitudinal wing shift
loading diagram wing postion 1

45000
Initial wing positioning
43000

41000 window seats

wing position 1
aisle seats
39000
middle seat

fuel
37000
cargo
mass [kg]

35000
2% in-flight variations

c.g. max range at wing position 1

33000

31000

29000

27000

25000
0,000 0,050 0,100 0,150 0,200 0,250 0,300 0,350 0,400
cg [mac]

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 40

Effect of longitudinal wing shift on c.g. travel
Wing shifted forward
(OEW c.g. moves back on MAC)
loading diagram
laoding wing position
diagran wing postion 12

45000

43000

41000 window seats

wing position 1 wing position 2
aisle seats
39000 window seats
middle seat
aisle seats
fuel middle seat
37000
fuel
cargo
cargo
[kg]
mass [kg]

35000
35000
2% in-flight variations
mass

33000

31000
31000

29000
29000

27000
27000

25000
25000
0,000
0.000 0,050
0.050 0,100
0.100 0,150
0.150 0,200
0.200
cg [mac]
xcg [mac]
0,250
0.250 0,300
0.300 0,350
0.350 0,400
0.400
c.g. max range at wing
position 2

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 41

 Effect of longitudinal wing shift on c.g. travel

Wing shifted back

(OEW c.g. moves forward on MAC)
loading diagram wing position 3

45000

43000

41000

wing position 3
39000

window seats
37000 aisle seats
middle seat
mass [kg]

fuel
35000 cargo

33000

c.g. max range at wing

31000
position 3
29000

27000

25000
-0.100 -0.050 0.000 0.050 0.100 0.150 0.200 0.250 0.300 0.350 0.400
xcg [mac]

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 43

Effect of longitudinal wing shift on c.g. travel

A plot can be generated that describes the

c.g. range variations for different longitudinal
position of the wing w.r.t. the fuselage c.g. max range at wing position 3 (backward)
(XLEMAC/lfuselage vs. Xcg/MAC).

Remember this plot because it will be used in c.g. max range at wing position 1
the following lecture to design the aircraft
according to stability and controllability Most forward

criteria! Most aft

c.g. max range at wing position 2 (forward)

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 44

The cargo loading diagram for a freighter
In case of freighter, there are hundreds of loading possibilities so that the design problem is
faced in the inverse way:
Given the final fore-and-aft position of the cg, what are all the possible location of the cargo cg
for different amount of payload.

xcargo 
OEW
Wcargo
 
xcglimit  xOE  xcglimit

 OEW 
xcargo  1   xCG
 W 
 cargo 

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 45

The aircraft balance process during operation
How relevant is W&B during normal aircraft operation?

“Between 2008 and 2016, the probable causes of 136 general aviation (GA) accidents (in US only) were
related to pilots improperly conducting preflight performance calculations for W&B”

“82 air transport (FAR/CS 25) accident in the period 1970-2005 whose the primary cause was related to W&B
mistakes”

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 46

The aircraft balance process during operation

The typical operational approach to balance the aircraft (pilot is responsible) consists of the
following steps:

1. Given the center of gravity position of the aircraft at operative empty weight* add the c.g.
variations caused by the actual non fixed items, such as the embarked payload (pax and
freight) and fuel**.
2. Check the weights are within the operational limits

3. Check the maximum c.g. range against the allowable most aft and most forward c.g.
positions*.
4. If necessary, adjust the position of the payload, or unload excessive weight

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 47

The loading diagram for operations

For commercial flight there is a ground operator who

is responsible of supervising the load operation and
he/she decides disposition of cargo and amount of
boarded amenities. He/She prepares the load and
balance sheet.

The commander pilot checks that the information

contained in the load and balance sheet are
compatible with the CG range limits of each flight
(and ground) condition.

Most of the times, the operating activities are

managed through automated processes and software
(e.g. each baggage weight measured at the check in
is then included software to estimate weight and
location of each LD)

These limits are given by the specifications identified during the AC design!
AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 48
 W&B systems

“Primary onboard aircraft weight and balance systems could resolve most of the weight and W&B such systems is
currently insufficient to enforce the use of these systems on commercial aircraft as primary means for
determining the weight and balance. However secondary weight and balance systems could still be of some value
in preventing weight and balance related accidents.”

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 49

During this lecture…
You have learnt:

1. the concept of aircraft balance and methods to control it

2. to compute the OEW CG of the aircraft and the effects of shifting the wing groups on CG
location
3. to compute the operational c.g. range of an aircraft (i.e. generation of loading
diagrams) and its dependency on the overall vehicle architecture
4. to distinguish between W&B tasks during the conceptual design of the aircraft from W&B
activities during the actual aircraft operations

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 52

Questions?

AE3211-I Systems Engineering and Aerospace Design 53