Linked Questions
22 questions linked to/from Why is the coefficient of drag for straight wings at supersonic speeds lower than for swept wings?
16
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What is the reason for the poor low-speed characteristics of sweptback wings?
I know there are advantages of swept-back wings delaying shock-wave allowing a aircraft to fly faster. However, what are the disadvantages.
I know one of them is that they have very poor low speed ...
- 161
8
votes
5
answers
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What is profile drag?
I know about induced drag, parasite drag, form drag, skin drag, wave drag, and interference drag. But I don't encounter the term profile drag often, and I can't find a good definition of it.
Is ...
- 28.4k
13
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2
answers
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What is the method to calculate a finite wing's lift from its sectional airfoil shape?
I am struggling to get my head around a concept that I believe should be fairly simple to understand.
Lift versus drag and AoA data of many airfoils are freely available, for instance the NACA 4-...
- 2,018
16
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4
answers
4k
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Why are swept wings better for breaking the sound barrier?
I'm told that swept wings perform better when an aircraft is trying to break the sound barrier. I was wondering why that would be?
- 24k
9
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2
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What causes the reduction in speed across the shockwave?
Wherever I read about shock waves, it is mentioned that there is a reduction in speed across the shock wave.
Can someone please explain what happens at the molecular level, i.e. the physics of the ...
- 559
7
votes
2
answers
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What are the conditions for an airfoil to be a "thin airfoil?"
I know about the theory differences between regular airfoils and thin airfoils, but is there any condition for saying a given airfoil can be analyzed as if it is thin? The extreme case of infinitely ...
- 111
12
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2
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Can a supersonic plane use a subsonic wing if the nosecone shock produces subsonic airflow around the wing?
A supersonic plane will produce shock waves off the nose cone, as seen below:
These oblique shocks reduce the speed of the air that the wing experiences. If the plane is at a low enough Mach number, ...
- 1,029
4
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2
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How can the zero-lift drag coefficient (parasitic drag) be calculated?
Consider a 3-D wing made from an arbitrary airfoil, say a NACA0012 airfoil. The wing has a trapezoidal shape, with a fixed span, root chord, and tip chord. Also, assume that the wing loading is known ...
- 185
3
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5
answers
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Is wing sweep needed on supersonic aircraft?
Area rule states that bodies with the same crossectional area distribution have the same drag. Does that mean I could use a straight wing on mach 1.2 aircraft with performance as high as sweep winged ...
- 2,484
0
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3
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Why does centre of pressure (drag?) move forward when transitioning from transonic to supersonic?
I am studying aerospace engineering at college and I am wondering why the centre of pressure moves forward when the aircraft changes from transonic flight to supersonic flight?
Also, is centre of ...
- 21
4
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1
answer
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Why does the aspect ratio of a wing become less important at supersonic speeds?
My understanding is that an increase in the aspect ratio (AR) of a supersonic wing won't increase the efficiency like it would for a subsonic wing.
If the subsonic induced drag is:
$C_{D_i} = (C_L^2)...
- 43
1
vote
2
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3k
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What is the pressure distribution around a supersonic wing?
In subsonic flight the lift manifests itself at 25% of chord, but shifts to 50% of chord when the airplane goes supersonic.
Wondering about that made me think that the reason might be that there is ...
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2
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2
answers
3k
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What are the effects of camber location in an airfoil?
Am I correct to assume that for a low speed aircraft, the location of the camber in the MAC's airfoil will correspond with the aerodynamic center? Also, does that affect the moment coefficient? And ...
- 115
3
votes
1
answer
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How does downwash change relative wind? [duplicate]
I have a question regarding the production mechanism of induced drag.
I understand the downwash aft of the trailing edge (steaming from wingtip vortices) causes the induced drag by changing the ...
- 7,537
6
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1
answer
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How does a delta wing deal with supersonic boundary separation?
The question Why most of the supersonic or fighter aircraft use all-moving control surfaces? emphasis the importance of all moving stabilator for supersonic aircraft.
Many supersonic aircrafts ...
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