Airframe means the mechanical structure of an aircraft^[1] and as generally used does not include the engines. Airframe design is a challenging field of engineering, combining aerodynamics, materials technology and manufacturing methods to achieve favorable balances of performance, reliability and cost. The airframe industry is complex. Its modern history began in the United States when a 1903 wood biplane made by Orville and Wilbur Wright showed the potential of fixed-wing designs. Look up aircraft in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Reliable system design is the design of systems with high levels of reliability and availability. ... Engineering is the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Materials Science Tetrahedron, which often also includes Characterization at the center Materials science is an interdisciplinary field involving the properties of matter and its applications to various areas of science and engineering. ... Manufacturing, a branch of industry, is the application of tools and a processing medium to the transformation of raw materials into finished goods for sale. ... Reliability concerns quality or consistency. ... 1900 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... Hs123 biplane. ... The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871–January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867–May 30, 1912), were two Americans generally credited with building the worlds first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903. ... This article does not adequately cite its references. ...

Many early developments were spurred by military needs during World War I. Well known aircraft from that era include the Dutch Fokker and U.S. Curtiss triplanes and the Italian Taube monoplane. These used hybrid wood and metal structures. Commercial airframe development during the 1920s and 1930s focused on monoplane designs using radial piston engines. Many, such as the Ryan model flown across the Atlantic by Charles Lindberg in 1927, were produced as single copies or in small quantity. The all-metal Ford 4-AT and 5-AT trimotors^[2] and Douglas DC-3 twin prop^[3] were among the most successful designs to emerge from the era. During World War II, military needs again dominated airframe designs. Among the best known were the Douglas C-47, Boeing B-17, North American B-25 and Lockheed P-38, all revamps of original designs from the 1930s. The first jets were produced during the war but not made in large quantity. “The Great War ” redirects here. ... Look up aircraft in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Fokkers first airplane, the Spin (1910) Fokker was a Dutch aircraft manufacturer named after its founder, Anthony Fokker. ... Glenn H. Curtiss at the Grande Semaine dAviation in France in 1909 Glenn Hammond Curtiss (May 21, 1878 – July 23, 1930) was an aviation pioneer and founder of the Curtiss Aeroplane and Motor Company, now part of Curtiss-Wright Corporation. ... A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three sets of wings, each roughly the same size and mounted one above the other. ... A monoplane is an aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. ... This article or section does not cite any references or sources. ... The radial engine is an internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinders point outward from a central crankshaft like the spokes on a wheel. ... Lindbergh poses with the famous plane The Spirit of St. ... The Atlantic Ocean is Earths second-largest ocean, covering approximately one_fifth of its surface. ... Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St. ... 1927 (MCMXXVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display full calendar). ... Ford Trimotor G-CYWZ of the Royal Canadian Air Force. ... The Douglas DC-3 is a fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft, which revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s and is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made (also see Boeing 707 and Boeing 747). ... Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000... The Douglas C-47 Skytrain or Dakota was a military transport that was developed from the Douglas DC-3 airliner. ... The Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress is an American four-engine heavy bomber aircraft developed for the US Army Air Corps (USAAC). ... Lt. ... The Lockheed P-38 Lightning was a World War II American fighter aircraft. ... Jet aircraft are aircrafts with jet engines. ...

Postwar commercial airframe design focused on larger capacities, on turboprop engines, and then on jet (turbofan) engines. The generally higher speeds and stresses of turboprops and jets were major challenges.^[4] Newly developed aluminum alloys with copper, magnesium and zinc were critical to these designs.^[5] The Lockheed L-188 turboprop, first flown in 1957, used some of these materials and became a costly lesson in controlling vibration and planning around metal fatigue. Eventually Boeing in the U.S. and Airbus in France became the dominant assemblers of large airframes. Numerous manufacturers in Europe, North America and South America took over markets for airframes designed to carry 100 or fewer passengers. Many manufacturers produce airframe components. An Airbus A340 airliner operated by Air Jamaica An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft with the primary function of transporting paying passengers. ... A schematic diagram showing the operation of a turboprop engine. ... A Pratt and Whitney turbofan engine for the F-15 Eagle is tested at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, USA. The tunnel behind the engine muffles noise and allows exhaust to escape. ... Tensile stress (or tension) is the stress state leading to expansion; that is, the length of a material tends to increase in the tensile direction. ... Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ... An alloy is a homogeneous mixture of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties. ... General Name, Symbol, Number copper, Cu, 29 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 11, 4, d Appearance metallic pinkish red Standard atomic weight 63. ... General Name, Symbol, Number magnesium, Mg, 12 Chemical series alkaline earth metals Group, Period, Block 2, 3, s Appearance silvery white solid at room temp Standard atomic weight 24. ... General Name, Symbol, Number zinc, Zn, 30 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 12, 4, d Appearance bluish pale gray Standard atomic weight 65. ... The Lockheed L-188 Electra first flew in 1957, and was the first turboprop airliner built in the USA. It delivered performance only slightly inferior to that of a full jet aircraft, at a lower operating cost. ... 1957 (MCMLVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Oscillation is the variation, typically in time, of some measure as seen, for example, in a swinging pendulum. ... In materials science, fatigue is the progressive, localised, and permanent structural damage that occurs when a material is subjected to cyclic or fluctuating strains at nominal stresses that have maximum values less than (often much less than) the static yield strength of the material. ... The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ... This article is about the airliner manufacturer. ... World map showing the location of Europe. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America. ... South America South America is a continent crossed by the equator, with most of its area in the Southern Hemisphere. ...

Four major eras in commercial airframe production stand out: all-aluminum structures beginning in the 1920s, high-strength alloys and high-speed airfoils beginning in the 1940s, long-range designs and improved efficiencies beginning in the 1960s, and composite material construction beginning in the 1980s. In the latest era, Boeing has claimed a lead, designing its new 787 series flagship airframes scheduled for first delivery in 2008 with a one-piece carbon-fiber fuselage, said to replace "1,200 sheets of aluminum and 40,000 rivets."^[6] These airframes are designed to transport 220-300 passengers, while chief competitor Airbus has designed its A380 flagship airframes to transport 550-850 passengers. The A380 is also built with a large proportion of composite material. Aluminum is a soft and lightweight metal with a dull silvery appearance, due to a thin layer of oxidation that forms quickly when it is exposed to air. ... An alloy is a homogeneous mixture of two or more elements, at least one of which is a metal, and where the resulting material has metallic properties. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... The term composite can refer to several different things: A dental composite is an type of tooth filling material made of a plastic matrix containing high-strength quartz filler particles. ... The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ... The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a mid-sized, wide body, twin engined jet airliner currently under development by Boeings Commercial Airplanes unit and scheduled to enter service in May 2008. ... Carbon fiber composite is a strong, light and very expensive material. ... The fuselage can be short, and seemingly unaerodynamic, as in this Christen Eagle 2 The fuselage (from the French fuselé spindle-shaped) is an aircrafts main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. ... This article is about the airliner manufacturer. ... The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, four-engined airliner manufactured by EADS (Airbus S.A.S.). It is the largest passenger airliner in the world. ...

Airframe production has become an exacting process. Manufacturers operate under strict quality control and government regulations. Departures from established standards become objects of major concern.^[7] The crash on takeoff of an Airbus A300 in 2001, after its tail assembly broke away from the fuselage, called attention to operation, maintenance and design issues involving composite materials that are used in many recent airframes.^{[8] [9] [10]} The A300 had experienced other structural problems but none of this magnitude. The incident bears comparison with the 1959 Lockheed L-188 crash in showing difficulties that the airframe industry and its airline customers can experience when adopting new technology. American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into the Belle Harbor neighborhood of Queens in New York City shortly after takeoff from John F. Kennedy International Airport on November 12, 2001. ... This article is about the airliner. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The vertical stabilizer or fin of an aircraft is found on its tail, generally pointing straight upward. ... The fuselage can be short, and seemingly unaerodynamic, as in this Christen Eagle 2 The fuselage (from the French fuselé spindle-shaped) is an aircrafts main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. ... The term composite can refer to several different things: A dental composite is an type of tooth filling material made of a plastic matrix containing high-strength quartz filler particles. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Lockheed L-188 Electra first flew in 1957, and was the first turboprop airliner built in the USA. It delivered performance only slightly inferior to that of a full jet aircraft, at a lower operating cost. ... An Airbus A380 of Emirates Airline An airline provides air transport services for passengers or freight. ... By the mid 20th century humans had achieved a mastery of technology sufficient to leave the surface of the Earth for the first time and explore space. ...

See also

• Wing
• Fuselage
• Rib (aircraft)
• Spar (aircraft)
• Chord (aircraft)
• Fairing
• Fillet (aircraft)
• Vertical stabilizer

A Laughing Gull with its wings extended in a gull wing profile Aircraft wing planform shapes: a swept wing KC-10 Extender (top) refuels a trapezoid-wing F/A-22 Raptor A wing is a surface used to produce lift and therefore flight, for travel in the air or another... The fuselage can be short, and seemingly unaerodynamic, as in this Christen Eagle 2 The fuselage (from the French fuselé spindle-shaped) is an aircrafts main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. ... In an aircraft, ribs are forming elements of the structure of a wing, especially in traditional construction. ... Cross section of an airfoil showing chord In reference to aircraft, chord refers to the distance between the front and back of a wing, measured in the direction of the normal airflow. ... The wing root of a simple aircraft, an American Aviation AA-1 Yankee, showing a wing root fairing A fairing is a structure whose primary function is to produce a smooth outline and to reduce drag. ... The vertical stabilizer or fin of an aircraft is found on its tail, generally pointing straight upward. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ Ed Rouen (2005). Airplane Names. San Diego Aerospace Museum.  Names and dates of more than 2,800 aircraft models produced since 1900.
2. ^ David A. Weiss (1996). The Saga of the Tin Goose. Cumberland Enterprises. 
3. ^ Peter M. Bowers (1986). The DC-3: 50 Years of Legendary Flight. Tab Books. 
4. ^ Charles D. Bright (1978). The Jet Makers: the Aerospace Industry from 1945 to 1972. Regents Press of Kansas. 
5. ^ Key to Metals Database (2005). Aircraft and Aerospace Applications. INI International. 
6. ^ Leslie Wayne (May 7 2006). Boeing Bets the House on Its 787 Dreamliner. New York Times.
7. ^ Florence Graves and Sara K. Goo (Apr 17 2006). Boeing Parts and Rules Bent, Whistle-Blowers Say. Washington Post. U.S. "whistleblower" lawsuit.
8. ^ Todd Curtis (2002). Investigation of the Crash of American Airlines Flight 587. AirSafe.com.
9. ^ James H. Williams, Jr. (2002). Flight 587. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
10. ^ Sara Kehaulani Goo (Oct 27 2004). NTSB Cites Pilot Error in 2001 N.Y. Crash. Washington Post.