Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Overview
Airfoil selection
Airfoil Designations
Xfoil
Reynolds Number (aviation’s dirty lie)
Aerobatic airfoils & geometry
Data
Some Thoughts & Summary
Airfoil Selection
For the purposes of selecting an aerobatic
airfoil (and plain old curiosity), several
existing airfoils were analyzed using Xfoil:
Munk M6 (flat-wing pitts; S-1C & S-1D)
NACA 0012 (Pitts lower wing) & 0015
NACA 63A015 (Pitts upper wing)
Eppler 472 (Extra, Edge*, MX2*)
Clark Y (older Pipers, many others)
Airfoil Selection
In addition, ‘Akro1’ series
of airfoils was developed.
Airfoils in this series
consist of elliptical nose
section with straight
segments to a blunt
trailing edge.
Geometry is based on
appearance of high
performance acro airfoils
Airfoil Designations
NACA 4-digit series: Decathlon uses
1st #: max camber in NACA 1412
% of chord 1 = 1% camber
2nd #: position of max 4 = max chamber @
camber in tenths of 40% chord
chord 12 = 12% thickness
3rd/4th #: percentage
of max thickness
Airfoil Designations
NACA 6-series- first ‘successful’ Pitts upper wing: 63A015
laminar flow airfoils 6 = NACA 6-series
1st #: series designation (always 6) 3 = laminar flow as far back as
2nd #: position of min. pressure in 30% chord
tenths of chord (how far back A = part of rear airfoil replaced
laminar flow can go) with straight line segment (fabric
Special letters & numbers: don’t covered aircraft)
ask! 0 = designed for Cl = 0 (symmetric
3rd #: lift coefficient in tenths at airfoil)
which airfoil was designed for low 15 = 15% thickness
drag
4th/5th #: max thickness in # of
chord
Airfoil Designations
Munk M6: Munk’s 6th airfoil?
Max Munk was German immigrant, one of
America’s greatest aerodynamicists of 20’s,
30’s, 40’s. Published a lot of material.
Clark Y: Y name airfoils?
Clark Y is in fact a Göttingen Gö 398
Clark Y (german airfoil) is the basis for the
NACA 4 and 5 digit series. Thank a German.
Airfoil Designations
Akro1-series Best design: Akro1-20-
1st #: position of max 15-10
thickness in % Akro1 = 1st series
2nd #: max thickness in % 20 = max thickness is at
chord 20% chord
3rd #: thickness of blunt 15 = 15% max thickness
trailing edge in tenths of 10 = 1% thick trailing
% (sorry!) edge
Profiles
Profiles
Akro1-20-15-10
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0 Series1
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
Xfoil
Program used for analysis is
Xfoil:
“Panel” code with boundary
layer analysis.
Generally accurate until just
past stall
(unfortunately, we are
interested in post-stall region)
Analysis is not 100% correct,
but comparisons between
airfoils are very accurate.
Xfoil has some design
capacity.
Never use airfoil that hasn’t
been tested in a wind tunnel
Reynolds Number (Re)
Dirty Lie: Airfoils stall at same AoA, properties don’t vary
with airspeed.
Airfoil properties vary with Reynolds number:
CL max, AoAstall increase, CD decreases with increasing Re.
Higher Re is better.
Re increases linearly with airspeed, decreases with altitude.
Re = ρVc/µ
ρ: density
V: velocity
c: characteristic length (chord, in our case)
µ: fluid viscosity
Airfoil Data
Performance calculated at two Reynolds
numbers:
Re = 2,250,000 (3 ft chord near stall speed)
Re = 10,500,000 (4.5 ft chord near 250 mph)
1.8 2.5
1.6
2
1.4
1.2
1.5
1
Clark Y Clark Y
Munk M6 Munk M6
Cl
Cl
0.8 NACA 0012 1 NACA 0012
NACA 0015 NACA 0015
NACA 63A015 NACA 63A015
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.2
0
-10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
0
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-0.2 -0.5
AoA AoA
Cl vs. AoA (newer airfoils)
Cl vs. AoA (Re = 2.25 million) Cl vs. AoA (Re = 10.5 million)
2 2.5
1.8
1.6 2
1.4
1.2 1.5
NACA 0012 NACA 0012
Eppler 472 Eppler 472
Cl
Cl
1
Eppler 472 (mod T.E.) Eppler 472 (mod T.E.)
Akro1-20-15-10 Akro1-20-15-10
0.8 1
0.6
0.4 0.5
0.2
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
AoA AoA
L/D vs. AoA (classic airfoils)
L/D vs. AoA (Re = 2.25 million) L/D vs. AoA (Re = 10.5 million)
160 180
140 160
140
120
120
100
100
Clark Y Clark Y
80 Munk M6 Munk M6
L/D
L/D
NACA 0012 80 NACA 0012
40
40
20
20
0 0
-5 0 5 10 15 20 25 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20 25
-20 -20
AoA AoA
L/D vs. AoA (newer airfoils)
L/D vs. AoA (Re = 2.25 million) L/D vs. AoA (Re = 10.5 million)
120 250
100
200
80
150
NACA 0012 NACA 0012
Eppler 472 Eppler 472
L/D
L/D
60
Eppler 472 (mod T.E.) Eppler 472 (mod T.E.)
Akro1-20-15-10 Akro1-20-15-10
100
40
50
20
0 0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 0 5 10 15 20 25 30
AoA AoA
Cl vs. Cd (classic airfoils)
Cl vs Cd (Re = 2.25 million) Cl vs Cd (Re = 10.5 million)
1.8 2.5
1.6
2
1.4
1.2
1.5
1
Clark Y Clark Y
Munk M6 Munk M6
Cl
Cl
0.8 NACA 0012 1 NACA 0012
NACA 0015 NACA 0015
0.5
0.4
0.2
0
0 0.01 0.02 0.03 0.04 0.05 0.06
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
-0.2 -0.5
Cd Cd
Cl vs. Cd (newer airfoils)
2 2.5
1.8
1.6 2
1.4
1.2 1.5
NACA 0012 NACA 0012
Eppler 472 Eppler 472
Cl
Cl
1
Eppler 472 (mod T.E.) Eppler 472 (mod T.E.)
Akro1-20-15-10 Akro1-20-15-10
0.8 1
0.6
0.4 0.5
0.2
0 0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Cd Cd
Some thoughts
We lose a lot of performance with no camber.
The NACA 0012 and 0015 seem almost identical, and
the 0015 seems to have slightly greater lift, going against
the general statement that 12% thickness has the
greatest lift.
The Eppler airfoil (without modification) has lower drag at
higher AoA and a sharper stall, but not much higher
CLmax.
Adding a blunt trailing edge to the Eppler and Akro1
airfoils resulted in drastic improvements.
It is likely that blunting the trailing edges of the NACA/Munk M6
airfoils would have the same effect.
Some thoughts
Some of the data associated with the Akro1 looks
suspicious. It’s superiority to the other airfoils is possibly
bad data.
The Munk has superior performance to the other classic
airfoils at low AoA, agreeing with the general belief that
the flatwing Pitts climbs and cruises better. At high AoA,
there is no appreciable difference with the other airfoils.
The 63A015 looks lousy. From personal design
experience, the 6-series has much lower drag than the 4
and 5 digit series. Explanations could be the low (30%)
extent of laminar flow and the modification (63A015)
In Conclusion
The data largely agreed with existing data and
experience.
There is a good probability of bad data in some
places.
Arguments could be made either way about how
large/small differences between airfoils are.
That said, I will be using the Eppler 472 with the blunt
trailing edge. To hell with designing an airfoil from
scratch.