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Boeing 7 2 7: A Carefully Optimized Short-Haul Jet by The Technicaleditor

The document summarizes the design challenges Boeing faced in developing the Boeing 727 short-haul jet airliner. Key design goals were to develop an aircraft capable of safe operation from minor airports with short runways using only basic instrument approaches. This required optimizing the wing for both high-speed cruise and low-speed high-lift capability. Boeing evaluated hundreds of wing configurations to find one with an exceptionally powerful high-lift system, settling on a small, sharply swept wing design with advanced leading and trailing edge devices. The emphasis on short-field performance and low-speed control presented greater challenges than designs optimized only for long-range cruise.

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123 views1 page

Boeing 7 2 7: A Carefully Optimized Short-Haul Jet by The Technicaleditor

The document summarizes the design challenges Boeing faced in developing the Boeing 727 short-haul jet airliner. Key design goals were to develop an aircraft capable of safe operation from minor airports with short runways using only basic instrument approaches. This required optimizing the wing for both high-speed cruise and low-speed high-lift capability. Boeing evaluated hundreds of wing configurations to find one with an exceptionally powerful high-lift system, settling on a small, sharply swept wing design with advanced leading and trailing edge devices. The emphasis on short-field performance and low-speed control presented greater challenges than designs optimized only for long-range cruise.

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flotterotter
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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LIGHT

tternational,
May 1963
•75

Boeing 7 2 7 A CAREFULLY OPTIMIZED SHORT-HAUL JET

By t h e T e c h n i c a l Editor

IOEING has for nearly 40 years been a well-known name in the ibility to gusts: the short-stage airliner flies at lower levels and
B world of air transport. During the past five of these years
the name has also become known to many who have
spends a greater proportion of each flight climbing or descending,
and so wing loading must again be made as high as possible in
nothing to do with aviation at all; in fact, a considerable proportion order to reduce sensitivity to turbulent air.
of the world's population is today aware of the fact that the Both these factors ran counter to Boeing's basic design aim of
company is a leader—and many would say the leader—in the producing an aircraft capable of safe operation, under the most
field of jet-airliner design and manufacture. Certainly the Trans- adverse weather conditions, from minor airports with runways no
port Division of The Boeing Company, of Renton, near Seattle, longer than 5,000ft or 6,000ft and with only elementary approach
Washington, is by a wide margin the most successful practitioner aids. The difficulty is not merely one of stopping within the
in this hazardous business. available length of runway: approach speed is the most important
The whole of this massive reputation has been won with a single parameter governing the ability of the pilot, flying manually,
single basic design. It is a design which has established a wholly to break out of low cloud after an instrument approach and line
new "plateau" of range, speed and payload, with seat-mile and ton- up on the runway. Assuming a given standard of aircraft response,
mile costs which are at present regarded as rock-bottom. In fact, and a breakout at 100ft on a 3° glide-path, it is possible to correct
although it is ten years old as a concept, the Boeing 707 is more than 100ft laterally at lOOkt; but, in Boeing's view, at 120kt
economically impossible to beat, as its rivals know well. Nor will the limit is 80ft, at 140kt 40ft and at 160kt no more than 20ft.
it be beaten, until fundamentally new designs involving extensive Taken together, these considerations could be met only by a
laminarization, the jet-flap principle, variable geometry or high wing incorporating an exceptionally powerful high-lift system.
supersonic speeds come into everyday airline use. The 727 wing had to be relatively small, and quite sharply swept,
Including military variants, just over 1,000 aircraft of this basic in order to cruise efficiently at high subsonic speed and provide a
type have so far been manufactured at Renton, and there are smooth ride at such speeds in relatively dense rough air. To make
reasonable prospects of at least 100 more. But Boeing's Transport it provide adequate lift at the low approach speeds which were
Division could hardly rest on this one laurel, large as it may be. considered mandatory Boeing began a search for leading-edge
In February 1956, before a single production 707 had flown, their and trailing-edge configurations capable of yielding the highest
department of preliminary design began an investigation into the possible lift coefficient attainable without undue mechanical
problems posed by a short-haul airliner to complement the big complexity or weight.
long-haul 707. The type number given to the shorter-range studies This search for the optimum high-lift wing was a natural exten-
was 727. sion of the programme already undertaken to improve the field
Contrary to what had seemed obvious ten years earlier, Boeing performance of the 707, and it was engaging the attention of a
knew by 1956 that it is easier to produce an efficient long-range substantial staff long before the 727 became a firm company project.
jet than an equally profitable short-hauler. One of the reasons for At one time there were 41 Boeing engineers engaged solclv in the
this is purely aerodynamic: for maximum efficiency in cruising laying out of different flap configurations. Several hundred arrange-
flight a high wing-loading is necessary, and this tends to result in an ments were investigated, and the main milestones are recorded
aircraft which can operate only from the runways of major long- graphically in the "high-lift" portion of the large diagram which
haul airports. A related factor is the aeroelastic one of suscept- occupies page 677.

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