Further experimental investigations of the characteristics of cambered gothic wings at mach numbers from 0.4 to 2.0

Abstract

The wind-tunnel tests on cambered gothic wings reported in Reports and Memoranda No. 3211 have been extended to include the effects of changes in design lift coefficient and of changes in spanwise camber without changes in camber incidence distribution. It was found that the camber was successful in that the flow was attached over the whole wing at the design lift. Also at the design lift the lift-dependent drag was close to the predicted values. However, the lift-dependent drag of the uncambered wing was also close to this value so that the benefit of camber on lift/drag ratio was very small. At subsonic speeds the cambered wings were less stable than the uncambered wing; also the changes of stability with incidence and Mach number were greater, particularly near M = 1.0. Changes in spanwise camber, without changes in incidence distribution, do not alter the force characteristics near the design lift, but do alter the off-design characteristics.