Should you include the wing inside the fuselage when calculating wing area?

I know there are some instances that the area of the wing "inside" the fuselage should be included in wing area computations. This would make sense in computing aspect ratio, but not if you are looking for wing loading or regular old wing area. Any rules of thumb on this?

From : Don Stackhouse

Derek, the convention is to ALWAYS include the area of the wing inside the fuselage in all area-related calculations, with the possible exception of when you're calculating how much covering material you'll need for the wing!

The reason for this is that for most reasonable fuselage shapes, the pressure field around the wing extends right across the fuselage, so that the fuselage in that region is producing lift, just as if there was only wing there. In extreme cases of bad interactions between the wing and a poorly shaped fuselage this might not be valid, but the problem there is not the wing area calculation, it's the miserable fuselage shape!

Don Stackhouse @ DJ Aerotech
djarotec@bright.net
http://www.bright.net/~djwerks/