On Saturday, February 8, 2014 6:09:11 AM UTC-6, J. Nieuwenhuize wrote:
It's mostly about improving the extent of laminar flow on both the wing and the fuselage. There's a huge area of turbulent flow there, which (at least in
theory) could be turned laminar. Bosman spoke about sucking off the LE of the
wing/fuselage section, but just taking wing and fuselage apart could yield 1-2 sqm of flow that's laminar instead of turbulent.
Thanks for sharing. Some interesting points.

But, to get those "1-2 sqm" of turbulent flow converted to laminar, you added almost that much area exposed to the flow. Some of which is still turbulent. Roughly 5 square feet of wing that was "hidden" in the fuselage is now exposed to air flow (2 feet spanwise, 30 inch chord). And, you have added a pylon that is something on the order of 24 to 30 inches tall, and probably more than 30 inches in chord. So, at best, another 5 square feet of wetted area of pylon. Probably more, because aerodynamically, you don't want max pylon width at the same chordwise location as max thickness on the wing.

Even if you can do it with a shorter pylon, it is still going to be difficult to get lower total drag with greater wetted area.

Steve

K