Book Description

An investigation has been made of the effects of conical wing camber and body indentation according to the supersonic area rule on the aerodynamic wing loading characteristics of a wing-body-tail configuration at transonic speeds. The wing aspect ratio was 3, taper ratio was 0.1, and quarter-chord-line sweepback was 52.5° with 3-percent-thick airfoil sections. The tests were conducted in the Langley 16-foot transonic tunnel at Mach numbers from 0.80 to 1.05 and at angles of attack from 0° to 14°, with Reynolds numbers based on mean aerodynamic chord varying from 7 x 106 to 8 x 106. Conical camber delayed wing-tip stall and reduced the severity of the accompanying longitudinal instability but did not appreciably affect the spanwise load distribution at angles of attack below tip stall. Body indentation reduced to transonic chordwise center-of-pressure travel from about 8 percent to 5 percent of the mean aerodynamic chord.