ALBERT

Description: Problems involved in the stability and control of tailless airplanes are discussed. Such factors as the location of the aerodynamic center and its effect on the longitudinal stability, longitudinal trim with high-lift devices, the effects of various changes in the shape of the wing on lateral stability, and the effects of nacelles are covered. It appears that sufficient stability and controllability can be secured without sweepback. With sweepback, a flap over the center section of the wing may be used to serve the dual purpose of elevator control and high-lift device. Sweepback introduces undesirable stalling characteristics, however, and may require auxiliary devices to prevent stalling of the tips.

Description: Problem of improving thrust at low speeds is primarily one of reducing angle of attack of operation of sections to improve L/D or reducing blade helix angle. An analysis, based on recent propeller data, is presented for determining improvements in thrust or efficiency which could be obtained by increased number of blades, increased blade width, increased diameter, dual rotation, and two-speed gearing. All methods were found very effective, particularly two-speed gearing.

Description: Description is given of flight tests conducted on gun fairings, designed to correct the detrimental effects of the projecting and submerged wing guns on an F4F-3 fighter. It was found that the installation of unfaired guns on a clean wing resulted in a premature stall that increased the stalling speed in the carrier-approach and landing conditions of flight by suitably fairing the guns, it was possible to reduce the stalling speeds to values approaching very nearly the clean-wing values.

Description: No abstract available

Description: The pitching and the yawing moments of a vee-type and a conventional type of tail surface were measured. The tests were made in the presence of a fuselage and a wing-fuselage combination in such a way as to determine the moments contributed by the tail surfaces. The results showed that the vee-type tail tested, with a dihedral angle of 35.3 deg, was about 71 percent as effective in pitch as the conventional tail and had a yawing-moment to pitching-moment ratio of 0.3. The conventional tail, the panels of which were all congruent to those of the vee-type tail, had a yawing-moment to pitching-moment ratio of 0.48. These ratios are in fair agreement with values calculated by methods shown in this and previous reports. The values of the measured moments were reduced from 15 to 25 percent of the calculated value by fuselage interference.

Description: Tests of 10-ft. diameter, eight-blade, single - and dual - rotating propellers were conducted in 20-ft propeller research tunnel. Propellers were mounted at front end of a streamline body in spinners that covered hubs and parts of shanks. Effect of a symmetrical wing mounted in slipstream was investigated. Blade-angle settings ranged from 20 Degrees to 65 Degrees. Results indicated that dual rotation resulted in gains of from 1 to 8 percent in efficiency over single rotation for eight-blade propellers, but presence of a wing reduced gain about one-half. Greater power absorption caused by dual rotation over flight range and higher efficiency or thrust for range of take-off and climb was indicated

Description: An investigation of cowlings for long-nose radial engines was made on the Curtiss XP-42 fighter in the NACA full-scale wind tunnel. The unsatisfactory aerodynamic characteristics of all the cowlings with scoop inlets tested led to the development of the annular high-velocity inlet cowlings. Tests showed that ratio of cooling-air velocity at cowling inlet to stream velocity should not be less than 0.5 for this type of cowling and that critical compressibility speed can be extended to more than 500 mph at 20,000 ft altitude.

Description: At the present time there is considerable demand for improvement in the aerodynamic characteristics of cowlings for radial air-cooled aircraft engines. During the past year, numerous cowling arrangements have been investigated in various departments of the NACA laboratory. Although a few full-scale investigation have been carried out, most of the studies have been preliminary in nature and have been confined to the investigation of model arrangement in wind tunnels. Because of the existing national emergency it appears advisable to release immediately to the aircraft industry the information available on the more promising of the arrangements that have been studied. An investigation having as its aim the improvement in performance and flying qualities of single-engine air-cooled military pursuit airplanes is being conducted in the NACA 10-foot pressure wind tunnel. As a part of that investigation, studies have been made of the relative merits of a conventional NACA open-nose cowling arrangement and of a less conventional but better streamline NACA high-speed cowling arrangement in which the cooling air enters the cowling through an opening ahead of the propeller, passes internally through an element of the cowling which rotates with the propeller, and thence past the engine cylinders to the exit at the rear of the engine. These investigations indicate that at airplane speeds of around 400 miles per hour there is not a great deal to be gained in high-speed performance through the application of the latter cowling arrangement, but at speeds in excess of about 450 miles per hour a very appreciable gain is indicated. Present indications are that improved engine cooling can be obtained throughout the speed range as well as ground cooling through the use of the high-speed cowling. This paper summarizes the results obtained from wind-tunnel tests of models of the two cowling arrangements.

Description: An investigation was conducted in the NACA 19-foot pressure wind tunnel of a tapered wing with straight railing edge having NACA 66 series low-drag airfoil sections and equipped with full-span and partial-span simple split flaps. The airfoil sections used were the NACA 66,2-116 at the root and the 66,2-216 at the tip. The primary purpose of the investigation was to determine the effect of the split flaps on the aerodynamic characteristics of the tapered wing. Complete lift, drag, and pitching-moment coefficients were determined for the plain wing and for each flap arrangement through a Reynold number range of 2,600,000 to 4,600,000. The results of this investigation indicate that values of maximum lift coefficient comparable to values obtained on tapered wings with conventional sections and similar flap installations can be obtained from wings with the NACA low-drag sections. The increment of maximum lift due to the split flap was found to vary somewhat with Reynold number over the range investigated. The C(sub L)max of the wing alone is 1.49 at a Reynolds number of 4,600,000; whereas with the partial-span simple split flap it is 2.22 and with the full-span arrangement, 2.80. Observations of wool tufts on the wing indicate that the addition of split flaps did not appreciable alter the pattern of the stall; even though the stall did occur more abruptly than with the wing alone.