While I do love a good anecdotal story, this one most likely never happened. Supposedly, he had the young man cut out the wing from plywood and attached that to the fuselage in the wind tunnel his goal was to show the young engineer that the airfoil cross-section didn't matter that much. There is an anecdote floating around about an old graybeard engineer running a wind tunnel test whom had to postpone things because a new engineer tasked with designing the wing became obsessed with finding the perfect airfoil. It is very likely that the one you need has already been created DesignFOIL includes all of the popular NACA airfoil generators. From 1915 until 1959, the N.A.C.A organization used wind tunnels to develop several family sets of airfoils, many of which are still in use today. In those situations you want an airfoil that will generate just the right amount of lift while minimizing the parasitic drag forces. Whether you are designing airplane wings or race-car wings, the airfoil matters. If you are short on time, you may find the new Airfoil Primer very helpful.įor the most part, yes. fairings around landing gear, wires, etc.). With proper selection, you can choose airfoils to either create lift or minimize the drag (i.e. In Europe the spelling is sometimes aerofoil and sometimes it's even called a profile. For example, if you take the cross-sectional shape of a generic wing, it would have an elongated teardrop shape. Those forces are a function of the cross-sectional shape.
As any streamlined shape travels through the air, it might generate a retarding force (DRAG), a lifting force (LIFT), and/or a pitching torque (MOMENT). An airfoil is a two-dimensional tear-drop shape that, when extruded into the third dimension, will generate forces when moved through air.
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