The Cormoran project: a new concept in commercial aircraft design

Abstract

[ES] This paper presents a new revolutionary design in commercial aircraft: the conventional vertical and horizontal tails are not present as generally known, and their contribution to the manoeuvering of the aircraft, namely the presence of the rudder and the elevators, is achieved by locating them at the wingtips and in the canard, respectively. Substituting the horizontal tail with the canard, the possibility of dividing the fuel between the wing (where it is located conventionally) and the canard allows the pilot to change the center of gravity during the flight with more freedom, while the effect of the elevators continues present. Locating the vertical stabilizers at the wingtips combines the effect of the vertical stabilizer and the winglet all in one, with the corresponding lost of weight. In this sense, the aerodynamic, stability and aeroelastic characteristics of an aircraft such as the one described have been analyzed using diferent modules belonging to CEASIOM program, and the results are very encouraging, showing that it is really feasible to change the cur- rent concept of the commercial aircraft without penalizing the performance.