Interchangeable wing aircraft

Claim 1

An interchangeable wing aircraft comprising: a common fuselage having a cut-out for the reception of a wing, said cut-out having associated therewith wing mounting means including hard points fixed in a standard pattern on fuselage structure in close proximity to the center of gravity of said aircraft; wings of different planforms to be used interchangeably with said fuselage, said wings having a center section which fits into said wing cut-out; each of said wings having semi-spans joined at the roots thereof by a torque box center section which spans said fuselage transversely, each semi-span of each of said wings having at least a front main spar and a rear main spar; said torque box having a standard pattern of hard points mating with said standard pattern of fuselage hard points for mounting said wing, each of said torque boxes having at least a front and a rear center section spar joined at their outer ends by ribs to form a quadrilateral load-carrying structure; said outer ends of said front center section spar of said torque box being connected to said front main spars of said semi-spans and said outer ends of said rear center section spars of said torque boxes being connected to said rear main spars of said semi-spans of each of said wings for transmitting wing loads into said fuselage structure; wherein the lengths of said front and rear center section spars of said torque boxes in each of the different planform interchangeable wings are selected to intersect for connection to said front and rear main spars of the semi-spans of said wings such that the quarter chord of each of said different wings is positioned at about the vertical plane of the center of gravity of said aircraft when said wings are mounted on said common fuselage.