Some exact calculations of the lift and drag produced by a wedge in supersonic flow, either directly or by interference

Abstract

Exact inviscid theory is applied to a simple lifting configuration consisting of a wedge beneath a plane wing, both the wedge and the wing being terminated by a trailing edge which lies along a Mach cone. The efficiency of such an arrangement is compared with the efficiency of a wedge producing lift directly through incidence, as in the Nonweiler wing. The comparison is favourable to the interference arrangement provided the parameter ... is less than 0.65. In an Appendix it is shown that optimising the shape of the trailing edge makes the indirectly lifting wedge superior to the directly lifting wedge for values of ... between zero and unity.