I'm working on the conceptual design of the path of a suborbital spaceplane and am trying to do basic calculations. I read that wave drag near the sonic barrier can be huge and can impede the flight.
I'm trying to use a Skylon type concept which breathes air till 10-15 km and then rockets from ...
Look at the streamline closest to the top side of the wing. It is moving upwards. Nearly all the streamlines move up before they move down. The net effect is a downward movement, but near the front they are moving upwards.
More importantly, that region is where the air is moving the fastest, therefore the lowest pressure above the wing. Pressure-wise that region contributes the most to lift. Thus the center of lift being at a quarter chord, so closer to the front of the wing.
But turning-wise, the vector of the air is upward. The NASA explanation of lift is all about flow turning, which inertia tells us will create a force on the wing in the opposite direction. So I'm confused about their explanation. If you look at the streamlines, they don't get directed below their original position until near the trailing edge.
@TomMcW the explanation about lift is about flow turning from front to back of the wing. If you look only at the front you will not see the whole picture
you have to look at the direction of the flow lines that enter on the left of the picture vs the direction of the flow lines leaving the right of the picture
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/09/20/who-spread-information-disinformation-about-the-mh17-crash-we-followed-the-twitter-trail/ given the subject, I guess a few here might be interested in this article
@Federico Regarding the question that got crossposted to Space SE (why do suborbital planes feature h-tail and or large wingtips?). OP has later deleted the post over at our site. It's certainly on topic for us, but Aviation probably has a bigger chance of getting it answered. If it's not on topic for your site we can take it.
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