Aeronautical Facilities Assessing the National Plan for Aeronautical Ground Test Facilities (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
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2. The ASEB agrees with the NFS report that new high Reynolds number ground test facilities are needed for development testing in both the low speed and transonic regimes to assure the competitiveness of future commercial and military aircraft produced in the United States.
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More-capable wind tunnels will facilitate improvements in aircraft performance and producibility. However, as documented by the NFS, no wind tunnel in the world meets or can be affordably modified to meet the goals defined by the NFS for development of future transport and military aircraft (see Table ES-~.s The ASEB agrees with the NFS that building the two tunnels as proposed is likely to enable subscale development testing for more than half of the new commercial transport aircraft projected for the next twenty years or so at flight Reynolds and Mach numbers.
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In particular, the new wind tunnels would allow testing models of existing aircraft such as the B-737 and MD90 at flight Reynolds number. Comparison of wind tunnel and flight data for these aircraft is likely to significantly improve the correlation of wind tunnel and flight data for future designs of conventional aircraft that have flight Reynolds numbers beyond the test limit of the proposed tunnels.
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The Department of Defense will have continuing needs for supersonic ground testing of new and upgraded military flight vehicles and systems, and NASA's High Speed Civil Transport Program will create additional demands for access to supersonic wind tunnels. Incorporating supersonic lacunas flow characteristics into military and commercial aircraft would significantly reduce drag and surface heating and increase fuel efficiency.
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This office, which reports to the NASA Administrator, is now working with industry to develop an acquisition strategy and conduct design trade studies for two new low speed and transonic wind tunnels, as recommended by the National Facilities Study. Participants in this effort include veteran wind tunnel designers, operators, and users from government and industry.
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The importance of low speed and transonic wind tunnels extends beyond their application to subsonic and trar~sonic aircraft. They will also be of special importance to supersonic aircraft such as high speed civil transports that must also operate Aeronautical Facilities: Assessing the National Plan in lower speed regimes during take-off, acceleration, transonic flight over land, and landing.
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Nonetheless, for the foreseeable future, computational methods will not eliminate the need for highly capable wind tunnels to support development of advanced aircraft. Continued work to improve computational methods and continued flight exploration (e.g., X-planes)
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