Computational fluid dynamics
A question regarding wind tunnel testing.
Please forgive my ignorance regarding aerodynamics.
I seem to remember reading that despite CADCAM now being the norm in aircraft design, at some point you always have to test a model in a wind tunnel, because the variables of airflow are so complex that no supercomputer can yet entirely simulate them.
Given the exponentially increasing speed and power of computers - how far away are we from being able to design and test aircraft entirely as designs inside a digital wind tunnel, and go straight from a digital 3D model to full scale flight ready prototype?