Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Modern aircraft wings may have different airfoil sections along the wing span, each one optimized for the conditions in each section of the wing. Movable high-lift devices, flaps and sometimes slats, are fitted to airfoils on almost every aircraft. A trailing edge flap acts similarly to an aileron; however, it, as opposed to an aileron, can be ...
The KF airfoil was designed by Richard Kline and Floyd Fogleman. Aircraft wing showing the KFm4 Step. In the early 1960s, Richard Kline wanted to make a paper airplane that could handle strong winds, climb high, level off by itself and then enter a long downwards glide. After many experiments he was able to achieve this goal.
The natural outcome of this requirement is a wing design that is thin and wide, which has a low thickness-to-chord ratio. At lower speeds, undesirable parasitic drag is largely a function of the total surface area, which suggests using a wing with minimum chord, leading to the high aspect ratios seen on light aircraft and regional airliners ...
For example, the NACA 2412 airfoil has a maximum camber of 2% located 40% (0.4 chords) from the leading edge with a maximum thickness of 12% of the chord. The NACA 0015 airfoil is symmetrical, the 00 indicating that it has no camber. The 15 indicates that the airfoil has a 15% thickness to chord length ratio: it is 15% as thick as it is long.
Many wings are not rectangular, so they have different chords at different positions. Usually, the chord length is greatest where the wing joins the aircraft's fuselage (called the root chord) and decreases along the wing toward the wing's tip (the tip chord). Most jet aircraft use a tapered swept wing design.
An aircraft with wings using a cambered airfoil will have a lower stalling speed than an aircraft with a similar wing loading and wings using a symmetric airfoil. One recent cambered design is called the supercritical airfoil. It is used for near-supersonic flight and produces a higher lift-to-drag ratio at near supersonic flight than ...
Aerodynamicists determined that, by appropriately shaping the airfoil used, the severity of these problems could be greatly reduced, allowing the aircraft to attain much higher speeds; this is the basis of the supercritical wing. Its design allows the wing to maintain high performance levels at speeds closer to Mach 1 than traditional counterparts.
Years of research and experience with the unusual conditions of supersonic flow have led to some interesting conclusions about airfoil design. Considering a rectangular wing, the pressure at a point P with coordinates (x,y) on the wing is defined only by the pressure disturbances originated at points within the upstream Mach cone emanating from point P. [3] As result, the wing tips modify the ...