PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Swept wings...who can explain??
View Single Post
Old 3rd Oct 2006, 20:06
  #7 (permalink)  
SCaro
 
Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Oregon
Posts: 21
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The original author got two things mixed up. A wing with a straight unswept leading edge is more likely to stall outboard first the more it is tapered. This is because the local lift coefficient may be higher outboard than inboard. In this case his statement about higher loading outboard makes some sense. A wing that has a swept back leading edge is more likely to stall outboard regardless of taper due to the threedimensional flow. The boundary layer tends to increase in thickness faster outboard than inboard because some of the flow is parallel to the leading edge away from the center. This can be countered by using boundary layer fences on the leading edge, which can be found on many swept wing airplanes to improve stall characteristics. Of course a swept wing with highly tapered wings would be a bad combination for stall characteristics.
SCaro is offline