Biplane Spaceplanes?

[Lego_Prodigy]

thank you for not sending yet another Xwing picture, and also NEVER forget to add enough intakes mate

 

[FireKerb]

Hey. Ask for a plane with two wings on each side, you get planes with two wings on each side.

[Lisias]

On 6/2/2018 at 8:42 PM, Lego_Prodigy said:

and I suddenly realized that none of the spaceplanes that Ive ever seen from real life were biplanes.

Attend an aerobatics show. You will se some there! (this is the famous Curtiss Pitts).

 

On 6/2/2018 at 8:42 PM, Lego_Prodigy said:

I know that the first biplanes were extremely draggy from almost everything, but Im referring to a sort of more modern material biplane.

The drag came from the aerodynamic forces that make the thing fly - it's not related to the material the wing is made of.

 

On 6/2/2018 at 8:42 PM, Lego_Prodigy said:

Would that work at all in things like reentry?

As badly as the usual single wings, as @steve_v answered here:

 

[Lego_Prodigy]

On 6/27/2018 at 4:11 AM, Lisias said:

The drag came from the aerodynamic forces that make the thing fly - it's not related to the material the wing is made of.

 

 

Thats not true, as the fabric would wave and do all sorts of unintended things, and not only fabric but also things like corrugated metal were VERY draggy from material alone.

A famous example of this: the Ford Trimotor.

https://imgur.com/a/zseQm9K

Edited June 28, 2018 by Lego_Prodigy

[Lisias]

2 hours ago, Lego_Prodigy said:

Thats not true, as the fabric would wave and do all sorts of unintended things, and not only fabric but also things like corrugated metal were VERY draggy from material alone.

Here. Learn something new.  

The friction drag is the only part that can be mitigated by materials - but most of the time, the cost on sticking with the present "draggy" material is smaller than the cost of the new material, be that cost in weight, weather resistance, durability or the raw materials cost.

Observe that as as the velocity increases, the lift-induced drag ("my" drag) ceases to exist, while the skin induced drag ("your" drag) really kicks in. In the biplanes era, they used fabric because the low speeds of the airplanes of the era didn't justify using heavier materials to mitigate the skin-drag - as the lift-induced drag was the real problem - and having two sets of wings didn't helped too much on the matter.

It happens that you are not wrong. What happens too is that I'm not wrong neither.  

("together", we are right - welcome to engineering)

 

Edited June 28, 2018 by Lisias
typos.

[Lego_Prodigy]

Fair enough.