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Old March 22nd 09, 02:17 PM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
Martin Gregorie[_4_]
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Posts: 165
Default aerodynamics of gliding

On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 16:01:33 -0700, The Real Doctor wrote:

On 21 Mar, 20:18, Martin Gregorie
wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:01:23 +0000, Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2009 12:28:59 -0700, The Real Doctor wrote:


Incidentally, if you don't have a copy of "An Album of Fluid Motion"
by Milton Van Dyke, get it. You'll love it. Every gliding club
should have one.


Here's a link to animated visualizations of the flow past a
wing:http://www.av8n.com/irro/- click the flag of your favored language
to see the visualizations.


I've never really liked that Joukowski transform stuff. The arbitrary
definition of circulation worries me, and anyway no real wing behaves
anything like that. It's a fair way of visualising the flow, roughly,
but I prefer to jump straight into circulation theory and model my wings
as vortices.

You're way beyond me there. I can choose suitable, matched wing and tail
sections for competition free flight models, which requires some
understanding of Rn effects and the usual section performance diagrams
and data. I also know a little about the use of turbulators and tip
shapes. As I've ended up with decently performing and stable, flyable
models I must be doing something right. However, thats as far as I go.


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martin@ | Martin Gregorie
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