Patent ID: 7883060

Claim:
A method of improving lift generated by a wing of a vehicle, said method comprising the steps of specifying a target airfoil section lift coefficient distribution, and applying a twist distribution to the wing and thereby maintain an airfoil section lift coefficient distribution across at least a portion of the wing that either approximates or equals the target airfoil section lift coefficient distribution; further comprising the step of determining the twist distribution based over an extended segment of the wing, at least in part, upon an equation, the equation being ω ⁡ ( θ ) = F ⁡ ( π / 2 ) - F ⁡ ( θ ) F ⁡ ( π / 2 ) - F ⁡ ( 0 ) where F ⁡ ( θ ) = ∑ n = 1 ∞ ⁢ w n ⁡ [ 4 ⁢ b C ~ L , α ⁢ ⁢ C ⁡ ( θ ) + n sin ⁡ ( θ ) ] ⁢ sin ⁡ ( n ⁢ ⁢ θ ) w n = 1 2 ⁢ π ⁢ ∫ θ = 0 π ⁢ c ⁡ ( θ ) ⁢ C ~ Ld ⁡ ( θ ) bC L ⁢ sin ⁡ ( n ⁢ ⁢ θ ) ⁢ ⅆ θ and where ω(θ) is the twist distribution, b is a wingspan, {tilde over (C)} L,α is an airfoil section lift slope, c(θ) is a local airfoil section chord length at θ, θ is equal to cos −1 (−2z/b) where z is a spanwise coordinate and b is a wingspan, {tilde over (C)} Ld (θ) is the target airfoil section lift coefficient distribution that is to be produced over the wingspan, and C L is a lift coefficient of the wing.