LE leading edge Transonic free-to-roll and static wind tunnel tests for four military aircraft – the AV-8B, the F/A-18C, the pre-production F/A-18E, and the F-16C – have been analyzed. These tests were conducted in the NASA Langley 16-Foot Transonic Tunnel as a part of the NASA/Navy/Air Force Abrupt Wing Stall Program. The objectives were to evaluate the utility of the freeto-roll test techniqu...

In many applications the viscous terms become only important in parts of the computational domain. As a typical example serves the flow around the wing of an airplane, where close to the wing the viscous terms in the Navier Stokes equations are essential for the solution, while away from the wing, Euler’s equations would suffice for the simulation. This leads to the interesting problem of findi...

Most methods for the preliminary safety and performance evaluation of airplane dynamical response, stability characteristics, and climb performance in icing conditions require relatively sophisticated methods, based on detailed empirical data and existing flight data. This paper extends a pitch axis 3-degree-of-freedommethodology to the fully coupled, 6-degree-of-freedom case. It evaluates vari...

We show by computational solution of the incompressible Navier-Stokes equations with friction force boundary conditions, that the classical inviscid circulation theory by Kutta-Zhukovsky for lift of a wing and laminar viscous boundary layer theory by Prandtl for drag, which have dominated 20th century flight mechanics, do not correctly describe the real turbulent airflow around a wing. We show ...

The goal of this thesis work has been to develop and manufacture an ice layer which was to be mounted on the tip of a scaled down wing model. The iced wing should be tested in a wind tunnel and aerodynamic comparisons should be made to the same wing without ice. The development of the ice was carried out as a modified product development process. The main differences are that there is no costum...

The use of airplanes for Mars exploration is a new and attractive approach because it provides high resolution power and large spatial coverage. However, it is also a challenging approach in engineering viewpoint. Mars airplanes are required to fly in lower Reynolds number and higher subsonic Mach number conditions due to thinner atmosphere and smaller speed of sound on the Mars, compared to ty...

This paper presents some results of the flight test campaign conducted on the Tecnam P2006T aircraft, on the occasion of its certification process. This twin-engine propeller airplane is certified under the normal category CS-23 and FAR 23. A prototype of this light aircraft has been tested in flight for a post-design performance optimization and for the assessment of flight qualities. These ex...

An urban operation of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) demands a high level of autonomy for tasks presented in a cluttered environment. While fixed-wing UAVs are well suited for long-endurance missions at a high altitude, enabling them to navigate inside an urban area brings another level of challenges. Their inability to hover and low agility in motion cause more difficulties on finding a feasi...

Recent advances in computer vision and graphics have shown that regular, monocular cameras and video (e.g. cell phone cameras and Digital SLRs) can be used to identify the resonant frequencies of structures, and even image visually subtle operational deflection shapes. This paper is offered as a teaser for that work, focusing specifically on an example that may be of interest to people in the s...