The Strut Rides Again

In its next concept aircraft, Boeing floats a classic way to reduce weight.

Friday, August 11, 2023 at 12:24 PM ET

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In January, NASA contracted with Boeing to build a proof-of-concept airplane called TTBW, for Transonic Truss-Braced Wing. [Courtesy: Boeing]

Key Takeaways:

Historically, strut-braced wings were adopted by Cessna post-WWII for their significant weight savings in slower general aviation aircraft, until aesthetic and competitive pressures led to a shift towards cantilever designs.
The concept is now being revisited for future commercial airliners, such as NASA's Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) project, where struts enable ultra-high aspect ratio wings to dramatically reduce induced drag and fuel consumption.
Despite the promise of substantial fuel efficiency improvements, these modern strut-braced designs face significant engineering challenges related to structural integrity, fuel storage, and airport compatibility.

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The Cessna 120, introduced in 1946, bequeathed its strut-braced wings to nearly all of its successors, making struts and single-engine Cessnas almost synonymous. It wasn’t always so. In the 1930s, Cessna built airplanes like the C-34, a clean radial-engine four-seater with a cantilever wing. The demise in 1954 of the C-34’s all-metal descendant, the 190/195, left the Cessna universe to strut-braced singles. So things remained until 1967, when cantilever wings appeared more or less simultaneously on the 177 Cardinal and the 210.

This Article First Appeared in FLYING Magazine

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