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Why Aircraft Sometimes Takeoff With More Flaps Than Usual

Simple Flying

One of the most influential cockpit levers on a jet’s take-off is the flap handle. Hinged panels at the wing’s trailing and leading edges transform a sleek airfoil into a low-speed lift sail. Increasing camber, flaps propel an airliner to lift off at lower speeds, trading a little drag for a lot of lift.

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Biplanes: If One Wing Is Good, Two Must Be Better

Flying Magazine

That combination of requirements was incompatible with very thin wings, and in the early days of aviation it was widelythough not universallybelieved that thin birdlike airfoils were best. A notable later finding was that the drag of a round wire is equal to that of an airfoil 30 times as thick.

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Flight Test Files: B-47A Stratojet

Vintage Aviation News

The door to the cockpit area is open, showing a view of the ladder that folds down to be used by the pilots to enter and leave the area. Photo taken on July 14, 1954 From May 1953 until 1957, NACA 150 flew numerous test missions at Edwards, contributing vital data to the evolving understanding of aircraft dynamics. NASA Photo

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Today in Aviation History: First Flight of the Stipa-Caproni

Vintage Aviation News

During these years, he concluded that the inner surface of the venturi tube needed an airfoil shape to achieve the greatest efficiency. The duct, as predicted by Stipa, had a profile similar to that of the airfoil, with a fairly small rudder and elevators mounted on the trailing edge of the duct. The Stipa-Caproni in flight.

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Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

Use of Reflex Airfoils Ever notice how many tailless aircraft have wings that curve at the trailing edge? This type of design is a reflex airfoil. The reflexed shape of the airfoil usually causes a positive (nose-up) pitching moment coefficient at its aerodynamic center. Flying wings dont have tails or elevators.

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Flight Test Files: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Vintage Aviation News

These glove modifications served to smooth the wing surface and alter the airfoil to achieve specific pressure distributions. View of the cockpit of NASA’s F-14, tail number 991. For the VSTFE program, the outer wing panels of NASA 834 were fitted with specially designed natural laminar flow gloves.

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A Bristol Bulldog Biplane Fighter is Once Again in the Sky

Vintage Aviation News

“Sitting so high up and trying to look down inside the cockpit for the airspeed is nearly impossible. ” When looking at the Bulldog, notice that the wing is very thin over the cockpit, but bulges to port and starboard to accommodate the 33 Imperial gallon gravity feed fuel tanks. of Great Britain, built 443 of the type.

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