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:

Cessna aircraft historically adopted strut-braced wings post-WWII, prioritizing lighter wing structures over drag, but later reverted to cantilever designs driven by aesthetics and competition.
The fundamental engineering trade-off for strut-braced wings involves reducing structural weight (beneficial for takeoff/climb) at the cost of increased drag (impacting speed).
Strut-braced wing designs are re-emerging in advanced concepts, such as NASA's Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) for commercial jets, aiming to achieve ultra-high aspect ratios for significant fuel efficiency.
These futuristic designs, while promising substantial fuel savings, face significant challenges including structural elasticity, fuel volume, and airport space constraints, making their realization uncertain.

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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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