Preliminary Design of Human Powered Aircraft by the Consideration of Aerodynamic Performance

In this study, preliminary design of human powered aircraft was performed by considering the aerodynamic performance. For this, overall weight including the aircraft and pilot was determined. Then, the main wing and horizontal/vertical tail were designed with appropriate selection of the airfoils and planform shapes. Based on these, three dimensional flow was calculated to obtain lift and drag coefficients and the position of center of gravity (CG). Consequently, it was shown that the lift and power of the aircraft satisfied the constraints of the minimum required lift and the pilot's available power. Also, the CG of the aircraft was located at aerodynamic center (AC) of the main wing, which guaranteed 26% of the static margin.