On Sunday, March 20, 2016 at 11:29:34 AM UTC-4, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Wondering how much if any lift in gliders is generated from the fuselage in flight. There is a famous photo of a F-15 that landed with one wing gone due to collision. This of course was possible due to the lift generated by the F-15 fuselage.

The Schleicher family of gliders had two new fuselages designed in the mid 1990's (ASW-24 and ASH-26). Scheme-Hirth, fuselages take their linage from the original ventus designed in the late 1970's (wing roots added in later designs, tail feathers modified with ventus 2cx.)

Seems like all new designs of gliders focus on the airfoil, wing shape and winglets, but I wonder how much if any design improvements are not realized due to improvements that could be made in lift and drag of fuselage designs.

The F-15 also has a total lifting area of a tennis court, and was travelling substantially faster. The wing in the F-15's case is much more integrates and spread across the fuse, whereas most glider fuselages generally match a tapered 50 caliber shell and blend the wings on. As UH said, all the fuse is doing is keeping you attached to the wings and trying to minimize drag.