Bob Kuykendall wrote:
Earlier,
Richard Riley wrote:
These guys selling snake oil too?
http://www.star-tech-inc.com/papers/aiaa/aiaa.pdf
http://tinyurl.com/g66ln
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprin...lcode=je xbio
...
Not at all. They make a convincing case that carefully-implemented
multiple element winglets can reduce induced drag so as to improve best
L/D over some range of Cls, especially for wings with low aspect ratio.
What they don't try to do is sell such configurations as a panacea, a
"substitute for span."
As all good sailplane pilots know, the only substitute for span is
talent. The difference between the two is that you can _buy_ span.
Thanks, Bob K.
While there was some discussion about heavy jet wings, the data in the
paper indicated that the tests were performed at very low Reynolds
Numbers - 161K to 300K.
Our light experimental usually run at least 3,ooo,ooo.
They are studying Eagle wings - not 747's...
Richard