Flight Mechanics Lect - 9

Aerospace Engine/Vehicle Performance
AE-3310 Lect.9
Dr. Omer Almatbagi
Room: Batiment 2,B - 301 ter
omer.almatbagi@uir.ac.ma
Imagine that you are flying an airplane, and you suddenly encounter a
major obstacle ahead-a large building, a hill, or even a mountain.
The ability of your airplane to fly up and over such obstacles depends
critically on its climbing characteristics.
Imagine that you encounter bad weather or turbulence at some altitude,
and you want to get out of it by climbing quickly to a higher altitude.
How fast you can do this depends on the climbing characteristics of
your airplane.
Imagine that you are a military fighter pilot, and you challenged to take
off and intercept a target at some prescribed altitude.
You need to get to that target as
soon as possible; how soon you can
do so depends on the climbing
characteristics of your airplane.
The climb performance of an airplane
is an essential part of the overall
performance scenario.
We focus to an airplane in steady,
unaccelerated climbing flight.
Note that the climb angle θ is defined as the angle between the
instantaneous flight path direction (the direction of the relative wind Vꝏ )
and the horizontal.
The general equations of motion for accelerated flight along a curved
flight path are given by Eqs. (4.5) to (4.7).
For steady (unaccelerated) climb:

The equations of motion for this case become, from Eqs. (4.5) and (4.6),
The force diagram consistent with Eqs. (5. 75) and (5.76) is shown in
Fig. 5.32.
The inserting in Fig. 5.32 is a vector diagram resolving the velocity of

the airplane Vꝏ into its horizontal and vertical components VH and Vv.
The vertical component is the rate of climb of the airplane; we denote
the rate of climb by R/C. From this diagram,
• Clearly, rate of climb depends on power in combination with the
weight of the airplane.
• The higher the thrust, the lower the drag, and the lower the weight,
the better the climb performance.
• For steady climbing flight, lift is less than weight; from Eq. (5.76),
• For climbing flight, part of the weight of the airplane is supported by

the thrust, and hence less lift is needed than for level flight.
• In turn, this has an impact on drag; less lift means less drag due to
lift.
• For a given velocity Vꝏ , the drag in climbing flight is less than that
for level flight.
For steady climbing flight:
The value of D from Eq. (5.84) is the value that goes in Eq. (5.78) for rate of climb.
Combining Eqs. (5.78) and (5.84), we have after some algebraic
manipulations
• Equation (5.85) is the key to the exact solution of the climb performance
of an airplane.
• Unfortunately, it is not easy to solve.
• Note that Vꝏ and θ appear on both sides of the equation.
• In principle, for a given Vꝏ , Eq. (5.85) can be solved by trial and error for
θ, hence yielding R/c = Vꝏ sin θ for the given value of Vꝏ .
• Or, for a given value of θ, Eq. (5.85) can be solved by trial and error for Vꝏ ,
hence yielding R/c = Vꝏ sin θ for the given value of θ .
with the assumption of cos(θ) = 1
For drag expression only the PR for
PA steady, level flight
• Hence the excess power is the difference between the PA and PR

curves, where the PR curve is for steady, level flight.
• The excess power is identified in Fig. 5.33 for both propeller-driven
and jet-propelled aircraft; at a given Vꝏ.
• This directly leads to a graphical construction for the variation of R/C
with Vꝏ , as sketched in Fig. 5.34.
• PA and PR curves are for a given
altitude, hence the variation of R/C
versus V∞ is also for a given altitude.
• At some V∞ the difference between
the PA and PR curves will be a
maximum, in turn, this is V(R/C)max
value.
• Similarly, the velocity at which the PA
and PR curves intersect is the Vmax for
steady, level flight,.
• No excess power exists at Vmax and
hence R/C = 0 at this velocity.
Hodograph diagram
• It is a plot of the aircraft’s vertical
velocity VV versus it horizontal
velocity VH .
• Consider an arbitrary point (1).
• Draw a line from the origin to
point 1.
• Geometrically, the length of the
line is Vꝏ , and the angle it makes
with the horizontal axis is the
corresponding climb angle at that
velocity.
• Point (2) denotes the (R/C)max; the
length of the line from the origin
to point 2 is the V∞ at (R/C)max,
denoted by V(R/c) max, and the angle
it makes with the horizontal axis is
θ (R/ c)max.
• A line drawn through the origin
and tangent to the hodograph
curve locates point (3).
• The angle of this line relative to the
horizontal defines the θmax.
• The length of the line from the
origin to the tangent point (point 3)
is the Vθmax .
Important: the maximum R/C does not
correspond to the θmax angle.
• The max. climb angle θmax is
important when you want to clear
an obstacle while covering the min.
horizontal distance along the
ground.
• (R/C)max is important when you
want to achieve a certain altitude
in a min. amount of time.
• Note that Vꝏ is smallest at θmax
and it increases as θ is made
smaller.
• (R/C)max does not occur at θ max,
since R/C = Vꝏsinθ, from point 3 to

point 2 the increase in Vꝏ exceeds
the decrease in sinθ leading to an
increase in Vꝏ sinθ.
• Let us make the assumption that for the drag expression only,
cos θ≈ 1.
• For example, in Eq. (5.84 ), set cos θ = 1.
• This assumption leads to remarkably accurate results for R/C
climb angles as large as 50 degrees.
• The error in calculated climb angle is less than 2.5 degrees and
the error in the calculated R/C is less than 3%.
• This is particularly acceptable, because the normal climb angles
of conventional airplanes are usually less than 15°.
1. Equation (5.86) is simply an elaborate form of Eq. (5.78),
repeated here,
• More thrust, less drag and smaller weight all work to increase
the rate of climb.
i. Increase the T/W increases R/C.
ii. A decreases in CD,0 or K or in both, increases R/C
2. Effect of altitude:
i. From Eq. 5.86 the effect of Increasing altitude usually is to
decrease R/C.

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Aerospace Engine/Vehicle Performance

For steady (unaccelerated) climb:

The inserting in Fig. 5.32 is a vector diagram resolving the velocity of

• For climbing flight, part of the weight of the airplane is supported by

• Hence the excess power is the difference between the PA and PR

since R/C = Vꝏsinθ, from point 3 to

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