With the advent of fly by wire, the laws of physics don't appear to be much of a limiting factor do they? With computers flying, could they get just about anything to fly?  Even before f.b.w., the US military had some pretty unusual and ungainly looking aircraft flying(?), or at least being controllable while in the air.

Do airplane designers now, or ever, consider the look of the aircraft in any way?

I would think that with military aircraft, form would follow function always, but in the competitive world of commercial & private aircraft, would one maker have an edge with a 'prettier' plane?

Humans by nature prefer things that are not ugly, so much like an exotic car maker takes into account aesthetics with aerodynamics, would/do airplane manufactures do this?

The old saying goes; "If it looks right, it'll fly right." There's a certain amount of truth in that.

Quote:

Not sure about #2. The MiG 15 also has swept wings & looks very aggressive. IMHO

Layne. wrote on Aug 6^th, 2009 at 3:07am:

Have a look at this photo & tell me which one looks the more aggressive. http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Chino2006/Highlights/F86Mig15Chi...

The swept wing used on both the F-86 & MiG 15 was based on wartime German research. The MiG 15 first flew two months after the F-86.

Fly-by-wire is not a 'cheat code' to get an airplane to defy the laws of physics. FBW or not, airplanes must still adhere to the laws of physics.

I'd assume that nothing has changed since the 50's. If anything, manufacturers would probably work harder on maximising the efficiency of the design, because an efficient design in conjunction with FBW could possibly mean wondrous performance.

I'm sure Gulfstream or Bombardier may add a few touches for aesthetics, but that is probably where it stops. You can see that the airlines and manufacturers do not care for aesthetics on their airliners - this is especially true for both the 787 and the A350.

I certainly don't like the curved edges on the windshield - the plane lacks the definition that the 747 (or even 777) has. But this isn't the thread to argue about that.

My previous comment was an inconspicuous manner of slandering the looks of the new airliners - they do seem to have been engineered for aesthetics to some degree, but I don't think the designers will be able to get more leeway on this in the future.

I think they do a bit of both. Like at the F-117 ugly for the most part due to stealth, but good looking at the same time. But the B-2 the 2nd stealth plane looks awesome and smooth. Then you have the YF-23 weird but neat looking, EF-2000 looks front heavy when on the ground, but when flying looks like it will topple backwards.

I'd like to think that flying will remain glamorous but over the years it has turned from luxury to efficiency. Planes don't have to look good, they have to work, be cheap and be long lasting. The F-35 is an example. Compared to the F-22 it is, IMO, pretty ugly. But damn, I would much rather be in the cockpit in that thing rather than whatever is attacking it.

It's a shame that aircraft seem to have gotten a bit uglier but as said earlier, I'm sure psychology comes into it a bit and designers will use certain shapes to make their plane look more menacing.

ShaneG wrote on Aug 5^th, 2009 at 8:02am:


Speaking as an aspiring Aerodynamicist, and from what some of my professors have said, looks are the LAST thing considered in aircraft design. 

I haven't gotten to my aircraft design courses yet (next year!), but one of my professors told us the basics of the process.  First, you decide what you need.  For example, if you need a cargo plane to carry X amount of cargo, well you need at least X amount of lift plus a factor of safety.  So you go and figure out how your going to configure the plane, what airfoil your going to use, etc, and get to work.  Eventually you end up with an airplane, and at the end may tweak it to look better.

Most aircraft do not look the way they do for aesthetics.  The shape of the fueslage on a boeing is a well thought out design.  And if you look at supersonic fighters there's a method called Area Ruling that affects the way they look.  Look at the F-106 here.  Notice how the center of the fuselage narrows over the wing.  That's area ruling, it smoothes the transition of cross sectional area which has the effect of reducing wave drag (drag that occurs at supersonic speed).

Swept wings?  Definitely not for looks.  It encourages spanwise flow which gives you more lift and less drag, however, the traditional rear swept wing has at least one major disadvantage.  As the flow moves along the span, the boundary layer thickens, which can lead to separation at the wing tip.  That's stall, and in this case you stall at the wing tip, the center of pressure shifts forward, and you have whats called a pitch break-the plane will pull itself back which you can imagine would be bad. 

That's why in a few years, as we perfect composite technology like that in the 787, planes are going to begin changing.  We will see commercial jets with forward swept wings, because they offer the same benefits of rear swept wings without the problem of pitch break (instead of pitching up when it stalls, you'd pitch forward if the tip stalls first).  The only reason we don't have that right now is because traditional aluminum/titanium construction isn't strong enough for the shear forces you'd experience on a forward swept wing.

So basically, if you look at cars, a lot of the time they are styled, not designed to run great but to look good.  Airplanes aren't designed for looks.  Every 'cool' feature of an F/A-18 has it's roots in aerodynamics, from the leading edge strakes (the extentions that go by the cockpit, if you don't know what I'm talking about I can show a picture) to the little jagged point on the middle of the wing, all of those features are for aerodynamics.  If you design a plane to look good, it's not going to perform