Such A Drag - An excellent article about drag on aircraft

[Badland-F5 Pilot]

We hear a great deal about how ultralights are high drag aircraft. The problem I’ve run into with this fairly generic statement. I decided to take a deeper dive into this and find out more about why some aircraft are considered high drag and others are no. I’ve finally found several articles that help to explain the drag issue. This is all with the idea of how to reduce as much drag as possible on my ultralight and in turn gaining the best performance possible.

The “high drag” term relates to many different types of drag on an airplane. Some may believe that there are just two types and to a degree there are. They are referred to as induced and parasitic. However, these two break down into more defined types of drag. Think of it this way – there are many types of automobiles on the road. This would equal to drag. Below that are manufacturers (Ford, Chevrolet, ...etc). This would be equal to in thinking about the level of Induced Drag and Parasitic Drag (though there are far more manufacturers, you get the idea). Next we think of model. This relationship would be the break down of the different types of drag calculated and they fit into the high level induced and parasitic drag. Some of these are profile drag, form drag, friction drag, body drag and many more. The following URL leads to what I know of as a very well laid out detailed breakdown of drag. There are certainly more articles, but this is the one that made everything start to click in my head concerning aircraft drag.

https://ultralightdesign.wordpress.com/ ... ch-a-drag/

I've also attached a PDF version of the article for those that wish to download and keep it handy.