Earlier Acceptance of Cantilever Designs for Aircraft

Driftless

Donor
The predominant structures of most early aircraft incorporated extensive use of external struts and wires to achieve stability, especially for wings. While this concept worked well to a point, there was a significant penalty in drag.

To my knowledge, while there may have been other proponents of cantilever construction to achieve structural strength and reduce drag; Hugo Junkers was the engineer who first achieve production success. Even then, it took a number of years for the method to fully take hold.

Was there a practical POD for making this shift in design be accepted as a better answer, at an earlier date?

*edit* What might have been some impacts of an earlier acceptance of that construction method?
 
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Was there a practical POD for making this shift in design be accepted as a better answer, at an earlier date?

POD might've been sponsored attempts on speed record, coupled with earlier introduction of wind tunels?

*edit* What might have been some impacts of an earlier acceptance of that construction method?

Apart from obvious early introduction of monoplane fighters, bombers, transports and hydroplanes/flying boats, we might see more trust placed into civilian air transport, plus earlier introdcution of retractable U/C?
 

Driftless

Donor
I'm no engineer, so allow for that lack of knowledge; but I believe others have pointed out on other threads that earlier, smaller wind tunnels were certainly extremely useful; their small size gave some skewed data. To get larger wind tunnels at this early stage 1900-1915; do you need investment by big universities, governments, or aeronautical entrepreneurs?

I suppose in the earliest days of HTA flight, wimpy engine power compared to weight was the bigger concern; though wouldn't reducing drag have offset some of those issues?
 

Puzzle

Donor
I suppose in the earliest days of HTA flight, wimpy engine power compared to weight was the bigger concern; though wouldn't reducing drag have offset some of those issues?
Drag is proportional to the square of speed, so perhaps when they were slow enough it worked out.
 
I would guess that, weigh for weight, you can get more wing area with struts and rigging, and wing area is important for early planes. Also, the better material science as time moves on makes cantilever aircraft more practical. Some low performance aircraft still use external bracing, although it's metal--Cesna 172--the most produced aircraft in history, has external braces.
 
This sounds good, but for early a/c, I see two problems. One, there's not really much need, since they aren't stressing the airframe enough or demanding really high speed. (Wait for WW1, tho...& then look for an earlier Eindekker.) The other is materials: with wood spars, could the cantilever design survive the stresses imposed by aero. loads? Did that need either bracing, or metal spars? (Again, wait for WW1, & tubular spars appearing...)

That said, engine power was a bigger limit on speed (AFAIK) than drag until into WW1, too, so... Even into 1918, in RFC/RAF, the weight of a parachute was said to be excessive. (Okay, it was about 50pd, & the brass were also concerned about cowardly pilots jumping to avoid combat.:rolleyes:)
 
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