Why did the Concorde have a high angle of attack?

It’s due to the nature of the delta wing. The high angle of sweep on the leading edge and complicated play of the vortices coming off the wing make the higher angle of attack necessary in order to reach safe landing speeds.

Why does a delta wing airplane need large angle of attack at landing and take off?

At low speeds, a delta wing requires a high angle of attack to maintain lift. As the angle of attack increases, the leading edge of the wing generates a vortex which energises the flow on the upper surface of the wing, delaying flow separation, and giving the delta a very high stall angle.

What is the angle of attack for take off?

Planes slowly angle up during take off at about 2-3 degrees per second for a Boeing 747. A bit of quick math and using the same Boeing 747 as an example, the average passenger plane has a maximum take off angle of about 10-15 degrees. That’s well within the plane’s tolerances of course.

What angle does the Concorde land at?

To state it simply, Concorde’s AOA was higher than other passenger planes. Indeed, the supersonic aircraft would rise to a high angle of attack of about 18 degrees. Meanwhile, passenger aircraft have a take-off/landing AOA that is typically much lower – around 10 to 12 degrees.

Can the Concorde stall?

The Concorde’s typical landing speed was about 160 knots. Landing speed normally is calculated as being 1.3 times the aircraft’s stall speed (the absolute slowest speed it can fly and still stay in the air). If the Concorde was a normal aircraft, that’d mean it probably couldn’t go any slower than about 125 knots.

What is the purpose of a delta wing?

Few aircraft spend much time traveling at high supersonic speeds because it burns so much fuel, rendering the delta wing, which is primarily useful for supersonic flight, less attractive. But the computer and an additional flight control device called the canard have rescued the delta wing from obsolescence.

Why is the angle of attack important?

The angle of attack (AOA) is the angle at which the chord of an aircraft’s wing meets the relative wind. It is important for the pilot to understand that a stall is the result of exceeding the critical AOA, not of insufficient airspeed.

What is a high angle of attack?

Description. An increase in angle of attack results in an increase in both lift and induced drag, up to a point. Too high an angle of attack (usually around 17 degrees) and the airflow across the upper surface of the aerofoil becomes detached, resulting in a loss of lift, otherwise known as a Stall.

Can the Concorde break the sound barrier?

The last flight of a Concorde in service was in 2003. Although Concorde and the Tu-144 were the first aircraft to carry commercial passengers at supersonic speeds, they were not the first or only commercial airliners to break the sound barrier.

How did the Concorde fly during take off and landing?

That being said, during take off and landing, the Concorde had to fly in an extremely high angle of attack (meaning a high nose angle) as its delta wing produced lift at low speeds. Here’s a picture of a British Airways Concorde landing:

What happens when you add flaps to a Concorde?

If flaps are added, the curve shifts to the left, the slope gets steeper, the stall angle gets lower and the maximum CL value increases. The concorde is basically a flying wing. It does not have a horizontal stabilizer. From the first theory, the wing when flying level would always have a moment pushing the nose down.

What is the landing gear layout of conconcorde?

Concorde is equipped with a hydraulically operated retractable tricycle landing gear layout, with a nose gear consisting of two wheels and 2 main gears consisting of 4 wheels each.

How do you increase the coefficient of lift on a Concorde?

Higher the alpha (angle of attack), higher the coefficient of lift (dimensionless variable of lift). If flaps are added, the curve shifts to the left, the slope gets steeper, the stall angle gets lower and the maximum CL value increases. The concorde is basically a flying wing. It does not have a horizontal stabilizer.