Could a (2010) be added to the title? The website don't seem to have been updated since then
An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#12I wonder how it performs when there is power failure? Does it glide well?
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#13Hey guys, I worked on this program as an intern in my senior year of college (2012-2013). There are 5 units of the mini-PW's out right now for testing, and I've built all of them. I can answer any questions you might have and I'll do my best to explain the aerodynamics behind it if anyone is interested!
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#14Could a (2010) be added to the title? The website don't seem to have been updated since then
The website hasn't been updated in a while, but I assure you that development is still going on.
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#15I wonder how it performs when there is power failure? Does it glide well?
Absolutely not. To glide well, you need big ol' wings. There's a concept called aspect-ratio, which is basically the relationship between the wingspan (left to right) and wing chord (front to back). High AR = better for gliding. Conversely, and in the case of the mini-PW, when you have virtually no wingspan, you aren't going to glide very far. We affectionatly referred to power loss as "brick mode".
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#16I wonder how it performs when there is power failure? Does it glide well?
Absolutely not. To glide well, you need big ol' wings. There's a concept called aspect-ratio, which is basically the relationship between the wingspan (left to right) and wing chord (front to back). High AR = better for gliding. Conversely, and in the case of the mini-PW, when you have virtually no wingspan, you aren't going to glide very far. We affectionatly referred to power loss as "brick mode".
So i suppose you could design a trade-off or balance. Increase AR while reducing the size of the mangus effect airfans.
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely not. To glide well, you need big ol' wings. There's a concept called aspect-ratio, which is basically the relationship between the wingspan (left to right) and wing chord (front to back). High AR = better for gliding. Conversely, and in the case of the mini-PW, when you have virtually no wingspan, you aren't going to glide very far. We affectionatly referred to power loss as "brick mode".
So i suppose you could design a trade-off or balance. Increase AR while reducing the size of the mangus effect airfans.
Well ideally we wouldn't lose power to begin with but yes. The PW is essentially a powered wing to begin with, so losing power leaves you with just a wing. The real design benefit here is that with the powered wing, you can make the win extra thick. And I can tell you, that internal space is huge. Plenty of room for any kind of payload.
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#18There is a difference between stalling due to high angles of attack, and having too much drag from cross-sectional resistance on an unstalled wing to be able to lift. The practical outcome is the same however, not enough lift to overcome the weight.
Or not enough airspeed, which is the most common stall condition real pilots face (caused by a variety of scenarios such as too much altitude, runway approach too slow, etc).
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#19Hey guys, I worked on this program as an intern in my senior year of college (2012-2013). There are 5 units of the mini-PW's out right now for testing, and I've built all of them. I can answer any questions you might have and I'll do my best to explain the aerodynamics behind it if anyone is interested!
What does the list-to-drag ratio versus AOA curve look like?
Re: An airfoil that will never stall, no matter the angle of attack
#20This reminds me of the Boeing YC14 blown wing (1). It looks a little like a fully structure-contained implementation of that concept. (1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_YC-14
Kind of reminds me of a lot of ekranoplan designs.