Simulation of Wetted Surface Area of a Single Seater Home Based Aircraft

To simulate the wetted surface area for the various components of the single seater home built aircraft using “C”. Aircraft wetted area (S_wet), the total exposed surface area, can be visualized as the area of the external parts of the aircraft that would get wet if it were dipped into water. The wetted area must be calculated for drag estimation, as it is the major contributor to friction drag. The wetted area is estimated by multiplying the trueview exposed as plan form area (S_exposed) times a factor based upon the wing or tail thickness ratio. If a wing or tail were papperthin, the wetted area would be exactly twice the true plan form area (i.e. top and bottom). The effect of finite thickness is to increase the wetted area, as approximated. Note that the true exposed plan form area is the projected (topview) area divided by the cosine of the dihedral angle.