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Originally Posted by Kurfürst
I'd love to see some lift distribution graphs to support that.
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There are plenty of resources on the internet. Not sure if one can find exactly the spitfire's lift distribution, but generally there are many sources for elliptical and other shaped wings.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kurfürst
If wing shape would have been such a factor, planes like the Curtiss Hawk, Zero or Hawker Hurricane wouldn't run circles around the Spitfire, but they did.
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Size, shape, weight, airfoil .... many variables go into the equation. No need to make simplifications like this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kurfürst
Simply because the British Air Ministry specified an 8-gun armament, and Supermarine could not find space in the wings to house them without enlarging the original trapezoid wing of the Spitfire (which was meant for a four gun armament). The design team was simply practical about it.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarine_Spitfire
In 1934, Mitchell and the design staff decided to use a semi-elliptical wing shape to solve two conflicting requirements; the wing needed to be thin, to avoid creating too much drag, while still able to house a retractable undercarriage, plus armament and ammunition. Beverly Shenstone, the aerodynamicist on Mitchell's team, explained why that form was chosen:
The elliptical wing was decided upon quite early on. Aerodynamically it was the best for our purpose because the induced drag, that caused in producing lift, was lowest when this shape was used: the ellipse was ... theoretically a perfection ... To reduce drag we wanted the lowest possible thickness-to-chord, consistent with the necessary strength. But near the root the wing had to be thick enough to accommodate the retracted undercarriages and the guns ... Mitchell was an intensely practical man... The ellipse was simply the shape that allowed us the thinnest possible wing with room inside to carry the necessary structure and the things we wanted to cram in. And it looked nice.
So again, you are doing a simplification here.