Trapezoidal wing

Trapezoidal planform

In aeronautics, a trapezoidal wing is a straight-edged and tapered wing planform. It may have any aspect ratio and may or may not be swept.[1][2][3]

The thin, unswept, short-span, low-aspect-ratio trapezoidal configuration offers some advantages for high-speed flight and has been used on a small number of aircraft types. In this wing configuration, the leading edge sweeps back and the trailing edge sweeps forward.[4] It can provide low aerodynamic drag at high speeds, while maintaining high strength and stiffness, and was used successfully during the early days of supersonic aircraft.

  1. ^ Application #43. Trapezoidal High-Lift Wing, FUN3D (Fully Unstructured Navier-Stokes), NASA (retrieved 30 November 2015)
  2. ^ Ilan Kroo ; AA241 Aircraft Design: Synthesis and Analysis Wing Geometry Definitions Archived 2015-10-13 at the Wayback Machine, Stanford University. (retrieved 30 November 2015)
  3. ^ G. Dimitriadis; Aircraft Design Lecture 2: Aerodynamics, Université de Liège. (retrieved 30 November 2015)
  4. ^ Gunston, Bill. Jane's Aerospace Dictionary. London, England. Jane's Publishing Company Ltd, 1980. ISBN 0 531 03702 9, Page 436.