Hi, everyone, and welcome to this new class in the classification of aircraft, in this case, we
will be discussing military aircraft.
The purposes of military aircraft, as you can imagine, are to perform specific tasks within the context
of military conflicts, which require aircraft to perform quick maneuvers to have fast responses and
to be able to fly at high speeds.
They must be competitive and advanced technologies, which will imply a very high investment coming
from governments and particularly from military budgets.
So, of course, the main objective of military aircraft is to be able to destroy enemy equipment,
and these can be performed in several ways, as well as a combination of efforts coming from different
types of aircraft.
So the first type of aircraft that is relevant is the so-called fighter aircraft, which are designed
to be able to fight and battle against other aircraft.
Then there are the Bomba aircraft capable of deploying bombs to specific targets of military interest.
Then there's also the attack aircraft, which are really a combination of both fighter and bombers.
And they have been developed as a consequence of advanced technologies and modern military capabilities.
Then there's also those military transport aircraft which provide aid to other military infrastructure.
And finally, perhaps one of the most interesting are the so-called spy aircraft, which were developed
specially during the Cold War and were designed to avoid any kind of detection from Raiders of the enemy.
Note that the technologies related to these types of aircraft sometimes are mixed, and you will find
aircraft with a combination of these properties.
In terms of the history of military aircraft back to nineteen oh nine, the Wright brothers who, as
you may know, are the builders of the first aircraft, developed the right model a aircraft which what
which was actually one of the first aircraft to ever been built right, but not the first one.
However, it was the first one to be a military focused.
The right model, a aircraft was capable of performing sixty four kilometers per hour with two people
on board with a range which went as up as 200 kilometers, which would be around an hour and twenty
five miles.
It was based on a previous model created in 1985, and this new model of 1999 was operational with only
a few modifications with respect to the first aircraft ever built.
This was, of course, a very early technology still with a huge way to go.
But it does indicate the fact that even with such early technologies, military military interests were
already down.
So as you will see, the story of aircraft is very, very linked to military aircraft.
So as we mentioned previously, aviation had a lot of important technology and advancements during both
World Wars.
This is the British sub with Camel.
From the First World War, which, as you can see, is a biplane aircraft.
This was common during the First World War because the power of the engines was still relatively moderate,
meaning that high speeds could not be achieved due to this reason, putting two wings instead of one
right?
Four instead of two, for instance.
This would allow to more lift to be produced by the aircraft.
Right.
So low speeds implied the need to have more wing surface.
However, this came with some technological difficulties, as you can imagine.
But was a rough solution to fly even at relatively low speeds.
OK.
Aircraft during the First World War were commonly developed and constructed based on wood because it
was relatively low weight material and provided enough structural strength for the aircraft.
However, you can imagine that having a modern Boeing or Nabbous right now made of wood would probably
not be the best idea due to its limited strength.
That really not so light material and other potential failures of the structure related to a material
which is not manufactured with extremely high standards, as are required today.
So what happened during the Second World War?
Well, metallic structures were introduced, particularly the usage of aluminum.
Even if aluminum is denser than wood, the aircraft would end up being lighter due to the higher mechanical
properties of aluminum, which led to higher resistant, thinner structures.
So this type of aircraft needed less material.
The aircraft was also lighter, and of course, it had improved mechanical properties, including more
structural strength and robustness and more load resistance capabilities.
So as you can see also, the engines that were used in the Second World War were quite more powerful
than the ones developed for the First World War.
And this would allow for faster aircraft, which did not require another wing on top.
OK.
So this led also to the improvement of wing design, which in the case of the submarine Spitfire, is
this characteristic elliptical geometry.
Now, this geometry maximizes the relation between lift and drag, but we will study this later on this
course.
Note that the radical change in the design of aircraft during the nineteen hundreds with the right model,
a right, the aircraft being built for military purposes in the First World War and then just comparing
it to the Second World War, you know, the faced the very fast paced progress of this technology.
I mean, still continues to mesmerize me, actually.
And, you know, sometimes I just think that maybe they were just trying to mimic the geometry of a
bird or something, but it seems interesting to see just how fast all of that progress could go.
Here are some designs of modern military aircraft.
The first one is the Northrop Grumman B-2 pretty famous aircraft, which was a heavy bomber aircraft
from the United States.
The B-2 actually had low observability or stealth characteristics, which made it very difficult to
detect and would penetrate sophisticated antiaircraft defenses to attack even those very heavily defended
targets.
Now, this stealth came from a combination of reduced acoustic, infrared, visual and radar signatures,
so namely the multispectral camouflage to evade the various detection systems.
Very interesting technology.
Here this is the Sukhoi Su 35, and he's one of the most iconic aircraft of the Russian Air Force.
Note, for instance, that the tail is divided into two due to the allocation of the turbo jet engines.
Note also that the geometry of the aircraft is blended wing body configuration.
You also have the typical common Eurofighter, the Typhoon Eurofighter, which is the one used for Naito,
especially in Europe.
And also an interesting aircraft is the Airbus A400M, which, on the other hand, is a military transport
aircraft developed in Europe with a high payload capacity.
Note also that four turboprop turbo propulsion systems, excuse me, are a key feature of these aircraft,
so I believe this would be all for military aircraft.
Now we can jump to the next section.