wing length and winglets

[jamieduff1981]

Prawo Jazdy said:

jamieduff1981 said:

First reply was my favourite.

Thanks to the limitations of written communication, I can't work out if that's something to be proud of, or whether it means it's full of inaccuracies! If I'm telling people nonsense, I apologise. It's also good to know if I've understood this wrong, as it will be important to my future.

Sorry - I meant I thought your reply was closest to the main point of the issue

[jamieduff1981]

AER said:

jamieduff1981 said:

First reply was my favourite.
...would be infinitely long with no tips to cause tip vortices. Lifting bodies are the opposite - they're just two wingtips with no wing inbetween and very inefficient for cruising.

Not really because lifting bodies are used for high-speed flight where the lift coefficient (and therefore induced drag) is heading for zero.

I should have qualified that

All I was getting at is that there's a good reason why subsonic airliners have long skinny wings rather than lifting body shapes for the speeds they fly at

[Prawo Jazdy]

jamieduff1981 said:

Sorry - I meant I thought your reply was closest to the main point of the issue

Ta!