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A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes.
A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing configuration and is the simplest to build. However, during the early years of flight, these advantages were offset by its greater weight and lower manoeuvrability, making it relatively rare until the 1930s. Since then, the monoplane has been the most common form for a fixed-wing aircraft.
External bracing can be used to improve structural efficiency, reducing weight and cost. For a wing of a given size, the weight reduction allows it to fly slower and with a lower-powered and more economical engine. For this reason, all monoplane wings in the pioneer era were braced and most were up until the early 1930s. However, the exposed struts or wires create additional drag, lowering aerodynamic efficiency and reducing the maximum speed.
High-speed and long-range designs tend to be pure cantilevers, while low-speed short-range types are often given bracing.
Placing the wing low allows good visibility upwards and frees the central fuselage from the wing spar carry-through. By reducing pendulum stability, it makes the aircraft more maneuverable, as on the Spitfire; but aircraft that value stability over maneuverability may then need some dihedral.
A feature of the low-wing position is its significant ground effect, giving the plane a tendency to float farther before landing. Conversely, this ground effect permits shorter takeoffs.
The Mid-wing form is the most common one for large aircraft, and nearly the only one used for passenger-carrying large aircraft.
The first parasol monoplanes were adaptations of shoulder wing monoplanes, since raising a shoulder mounted wing above the fuselage greatly improved visibility downwards, which was useful for reconnaissance roles, as with the widely used Morane-Saulnier L.Davilla, 1997, pp.60 & 315 The parasol wing allows for an efficient design with good pilot visibility, and was adopted for some fighter aircraft such as the Fokker D.VIII and Morane-Saulnier AI in the later part of the First World War.Angelucci and Matricardi, pp. 151, 290-1.
A parasol wing also provides a high mounting point for engines and during the interwar period was popular on flying boats, which need to lift the propellers clear of spray. Examples include the Martin M-130, Dornier Do 18 and the Consolidated PBY Catalina.
Compared to a biplane, a parasol wing has less bracing and lower drag. It remains a popular configuration for amphibians and small homebuilt and ultralight aircraft.
The equivalent German language term is Eindecker, as in the mid-wing Fokker Eindecker fighter of 1915 which for a time dominated the skies in what became known as the "Fokker scourge". The German military Idflieg aircraft designation system prior to 1918 prefixed monoplane type designations with an E, until the approval of the Fokker D.VIII fighter from its former "E.V" designation. However, the success of the Fokker was short-lived, and World War I was dominated by biplanes. Towards the end of the war, the parasol monoplane became popular and successful designs were produced into the 1920s.Angelucci and Matricardi, pp. 109-129.
Nonetheless, relatively few monoplane types were built between 1914 and the late 1920s, compared with the number of biplanes. The reasons for this were primarily practical. With the low engine powers and airspeeds available, the wings of a monoplane needed to be large in order to create enough lift while a biplane could have two smaller wings and so be made smaller and lighter.
Towards the end of the First World War, the inherent high drag of the biplane was beginning to restrict performance. Engines were not yet powerful enough to make the heavy cantilever-wing monoplane viable, and the braced parasol wing became popular on fighter aircraft, although few arrived in time to see combat. It remained popular throughout the 1920s.
On with a shallow hull, a parasol wing allows the engines to be mounted above the spray from the water when taking off and landing. This arrangement was popular on flying boats during the 1930s; a late example being the Consolidated PBY Catalina. It died out when taller hulls became the norm during World War II, allowing a high wing to be attached directly to the hull.
As ever-increasing engine powers made the weight of all-metal construction and the cantilever wing more practical—first pioneered together by the revolutionary German Empire Junkers J 1 Junkers demonstrator in 1915–16—they became common during the post–World War I period, the day of the braced wing passed, and by the 1930s, the cantilever monoplane was fast becoming the standard configuration for a fixed-wing aircraft. Advanced monoplane fighter-aircraft designs were mass-produced for military services around the world in both the Soviet Union and the United States in the early–mid 1930s, with the Polikarpov I-16 and the Boeing P-26 Peashooter respectively.
Most military aircraft of WWII were monoplanes, as have been virtually all aircraft since, except for a few specialist types.
Jet and rocket engines have even more power and all modern high-speed aircraft, especially supersonic types, have been monoplanes.
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