Tool · 91 aircraft, 1903–1982

Design Trends Explorer

Every aircraft in this module in one place: the Wright Flyer and the 90 aircraft of Laurence Loftin's Quest for Performance (NASA SP-468). Plot any parameter against any other, filter by era and role, fit a trend line as a designer would, compare planforms to scale, and download the data for your own analysis.

Plot two parameters

Choose the axes. Hover over a point (or tap it) to identify the aircraft, and click it to show its numbers and planform below the chart. A trend fit uses the points shown, so filter first: trends only make sense within one class of aircraft.

Eras shown

Figure E.1 Design parameters of the aircraft in this module. Circles are propeller aircraft, triangles jets; colors mark the era. Loftin estimated \(\CDz\) and \(\LDmax\) only where performance data allowed, so some aircraft are missing from those plots.

An aircraft and its planform

Choose an aircraft here, or click one on the chart. Add a second to compare them to the same scale.

Figure E.2 Schematic top views to scale (grid squares are 5 m), built from the published span, length, wing area and sweep; engine positions and tail sizes are typical, not exact.

The data

All 91 aircraft. Click a column heading to sort; the search box filters by name. Download the table as a CSV file to analyze it in a spreadsheet or in Python or MATLAB.

About the data

Source. Laurence K. Loftin Jr., Quest for Performance: The Evolution of Modern Aircraft, NASA SP-468 (1985), Appendix A, Tables I–III (propeller aircraft, 1914–1980), V (jet fighters) and VII (jet transports). The values were transcribed from the published tables and converted from US units; the original US values are kept in the CSV file.
The Wright Flyer (1903) is added from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (span, length, weights, 12 hp) and NASA Glenn Research Center (wing area 510 ft²).
Years are the first flight of the type. Loftin gives them for the jets; for the propeller aircraft of Tables I–III they come from general references and may differ by a year for a particular variant.
\(\CDz\) and \(\LDmax\) are Loftin's estimates from published performance (his Appendix C), with \(e = 0.70\) to \(0.75\). For jet transports he gave no \(\CDz\), and his \(\LDmax\) estimates come from his text (707-320B 19 to 19.5, DC-8-63 17.9, 747-200B and 767-200 about 18, L-1011 and DC-10 17 to 17.5).
Wing loading and thrust-to-weight ratio are computed here from the gross weight; for the jet fighters, \(\TW\) uses the maximum (afterburning) thrust. Variable-sweep aircraft are listed with their wings spread.
Range for jet transports is Loftin's maximum-payload range with no fuel reserve.