"Ron Wanttaja" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 21:27:21 -0600, Big John wrote:

There was a group (don't remember who, could have been NASA????)
sometime after the War who ran tests on the mustang wing and concluded
it was not laminar. Not sure now if this was from wind tunnel tests or
computer simulation? Also not sure what their object was, maybe just
too much time on their hands?

Then again, I've heard that it's very difficult to get true laminar flow
for *any* type of construction...at least in the real world. A bit of
dirt, a fuel cap, a small dent from a dropped tool, a few bugs splattered
on the leading edge....

True. Arnold did his world-record run purposely in the early morning
before the bugs were out, and on a Sunday since most of them are
protestants.

I'm trying to remember which lam flow airfoil it was in one of the mags.
The Stallion, maybe? The pilot/designer wrote that he had a jolting hard
landing at Oshkosh because he had descended and flown into bug territory
altitude for the last several hundred miles and picked up a layer of them on
his leading edge, causing his stall speed to increase about 10 knots.


On the opposite side of the spectrum, I'm considering goofing around with
some homemade VGs on my Fly Baby next year. Figured I buy a batch of
1/4 -
1/2" aluminum angle and cut up a batch. Anybody have any rules of thumb
regarding size, placement, stupidity of the idea, etc.?

Ron Wanttaja