Historical Perspective Of Aircraft Designs

 In a 1988 paper delivered at the Aerospace Technology Conference and

Exposition in Anaheim, CA, University of Kansas Professor Jan Roskam

addressed the factors and “severe and/or novel design requirements” driving 

aeronautical engineers to evolve new design concepts. As background for comparison, Roskam defined a “conventional” configuration “as one with which 

the designer and user community have some degree of familiarity and confidence,” adding as an example “the classical wing/fuselage/tail design used by 

over 90 percent of all airplanes.” He pointed out that what engineers consider to

be unique “depends to some extent on their background,” adding that “[a]fter 

being around a ‘unique’ configuration for some time, it ceases to be unique!”6

He used the Boeing B-47 Stratojet as an example.