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Old February 28th 15, 04:34 AM posted to rec.aviation.soaring
BobW
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Posts: 504
Default new wingtip design

On 2/27/2015 6:30 PM, Craig Funston wrote:
On Friday, February 27, 2015 at 3:25:30 PM UTC-8, Bob Whelan wrote:
On 2/27/2015 3:20 PM, Charlie M. (UH & 002 owner/pilot) wrote:
I did a Google search for "Minix wing tip"

Snip...


Curious on what others here think/feel/know......


Think/feel... These sorts of things are what happens when intuition is
applied inaptly, kind of like those early schemes proposing ways for
making balloons dirigible, i.e. steerable...you know, oars and sails and
the like. How does this magical "unwinding" device go about capturing the
entire pressure differential between bottom & top of the wing so's to
prevent vorticity developing? Methinks at the very least a considerably
larger bell-mouth is in order to have potential for ANY detectable
vortical disruption. :-)

Quite Possibly/Presumably In the "Know Dep't." (Copied from comments) "I
tested this device for my university thesis and it done nothing at all
but to increase drag due to the extra skin friction drag caused by a
greater surface area. The vortices do not reduce because the design
considers the physics on too primitive and intuitive a level." James
Fletcher 26th March, 2012 @ 01:58 pm PDT


Excellent discussion of "Common Misconceptions in Aerodyanmics" Worth the
time to listen to the whole thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKCK...bn0iDCBbgpLbX6

Craig


Great lecture - wish I'd had more like this in collich!

The aero engineer in me is still laughing at: "It's easy to explain how a
rocket works, but explaining how a wing works takes a rocket scientist."
Making it even funnier is that I used the degree for the first 4 years after
school in the solid rocket motor industry, where "rocket scientist" jokes were
rife...and decades later, non-aerodynamiscist-me is still trying to refine my
understanding/explanation for lift and its generation! Considering sailplanes,
I'm presently a fan of: gravity causes lift - after that things become
complicated! :-)

Bob W.