last item an agenda here is a wrap-up
and returning to our own ed Saltzman for
that that is currently a senior Aaron am
assist with Ken transplanting research
corp staff here at Dryden he's had a no
noteworthy career as an aerodynamicist
for over 40 years with naca and NASA
although he retired from Dryden and NASA
in 1981 he's continued to work here
part-time for one of our engineering
support service contractors as I
previously mentioned and his career has
been spent in conducting aerodynamic
research as it affects the performance
of vehicles aircraft and ground vehicles
and some of you may know that in the
early 70s are the mid 70s and early 80s
he was involved in some work involving
trucks and vans in the era of the first
energy crisis so at Salzman wrap up
please
okay thank you we're going to need that
most of us here are or have been
Associates of the dryden flight research
facility and I want to underline the
word Dryden remember that one and today
we have honored and dedicated the
supercritical wing research airplane
which is in my mind a significant
transonic research facility and I want
to underline the word transonic
transonic and Dryden how do they relate
i'm going to try to establish a link and
i believe we will show that there is a
link between Dryden and transonic first
next though I'll indicate for items I
want to cover I want to recognize the
man Dryden and the place Dryden which is
us relative to experimental transonic
aerodynamics I also want to recognize
the inventor of the supercritical wing
concept and how he dominated
experimental transonic aerodynamics for
at least three decades I want to
proclaim that transonic research is not
just history and the transonic problems
will surely still confront us and then
lastly I want to recognize the people
who worked on the super critical
research airplane here but now that back
to Dryden and transonic and I got to
learn how to work this which button do I
push to start the slides okay
Dryden and transonic we want to
establish now what transonic is in early
nineteen forty seven this is the way
transonic research was considered and as
you can see there was quite a gap in
theory there were three experimental
methods that were going through the
transonic region but those three
experimental methods were qualitative in
nature the instrumentation was marginal
two of them required to telemetry which
hadn't been developed that well yet and
there you were going to have to
establish better theory either on the
basis of wind tunnel work or flight and
as you can see the airplane hadn't gone
supersonic yet or Trenton even the speed
of sound and the wind tunnels were close
to getting there the slotted tunnel was
being worked on a matter of fact dr.
Wickham was working on it but the plan
was to establish a transonic research
facility for flight as well as
completing the slotted throat work in
the tunnel
later in nineteen forty seven the
aircraft designed for flight work in the
transonic region flu Mach 1 in fact it
got tamaqua number one point 06 later
this airplane flew to nearly
one-and-a-half a later pumped up version
reached almost two and a half but the
thing we should remember is that this
was basically a transonic research
facility and that's my first link
between the place dryden in this case in
transonic research because the place
dryden is us we r is namesake the x1 in
flying through the transonic drag your
eyes provided a valuable source of data
or a wing pressure profile data at
transonic speeds as well as the building
control and loads data but I want to
point out here the pride doesn't show
very well but here in flight data from
the eight percent wing and the ten
percent wing where we see drag
coefficient plotted against Mach number
and the this transonic drag rise which
leveled off right about there and
proceeded when it went faster is the
drag rise that I want to show a little
later in some very very early work done
by dr. Dryden and is it also the
increment of drag the doctor Wickham
reduced with the area rule which will
also talk about in a little bit now I
want to go a way back in aerodynamic
research history back almost as far as a
doctor mature went earlier this morning
not quite that far back perhaps in this
case let's see let's pick out something
like will say the invention of the steam
engine would be one end of the time
scale we're talking about and the other
end might be as far back as milk
Thompson's birthday
at that time a young PhD named Hugh
Dryden and two co-workers obtained the
first data from a ground facility that
showed the beginnings of the transonic
drag rise here we have drag coefficient
plotted against in this case they called
it V over C I wish that showed better
for you that are back quite a ways take
my word for it this is V over C test
velocity divided by the speed of sound
plotted against drag coefficient for two
airfoils of different thicknesses and
what they were doing at that time was
evaluating airfoil drag characteristics
for propeller research airplanes at this
time are flying about 100 miles an hour
most of them the absolute speed record
was below 280 to get these data they had
to travel to Lynn Massachusetts and
borrow a compressor that was owned by
General Electric Company this compressor
was a 5,000 horsepower compressor that
they used to pressurize a large tank
that was about 30 feet long and 30
inches in diameter and at one end of
this they had an opening of 12 inches
below which they placed their air for
models this in other words this was the
free jet it was very noisy and
incidentally they had to use this
borrowed compressor system just when
General Electric let them use it so they
ended up doing their first tests on
Christmas Day in 1923 after the tests it
is written here this is by Dryden
himself he says we walked down the
street in Lynn after the tests
discussing the jet and noticed that
passers-by were staring at us strangely
and they were shaking their heads it was
some time before we discovered that they
we had been
shouting at each other at the top of our
voices we were both temporarily deaf as
a result of working with our heads only
a few inches from the large jet now the
primarily thing I wanted to show here
was the beginnings of the drag rise and
this was done beginning Christmas Day
1923 they showed the beginning of the
drag rise for these various air these
two airfoils at various angles of attack
incidentally they didn't talk about Mach
number they talked about velocity ratio
and they didn't talk about transonic
because there was no such word yet they
talked about a different flow regime and
once in a while they would say in their
literature there seems to be a critical
condition or a critical velocity it was
two years later in 1926 I think that's
when Milt was born that Briggs and
Dryden his coworker in case I just
showed you and Dryden devised an
experiment to obtain pressure data in a
pressure distribution form similar to
what dr. Whitcomb use it and showed to
us on the same airfoil shapes that they
had tested on Christmas Day in 1923 they
wanted to go supersonic this time so
they devised the first convergent
divergent test nozzle ever tested in the
united states that actually provided
quantitative or maybe dr. Dryden would
say qualitative but I've seen the plots
and it looks quantitative aerodynamic
data this was a two-inch diameter nozzle
and it was another open jet the cord of
their air foils was one inch they tested
six airfoils that way
it was a at this time incidentally as I
indicated before there was no such word
as trance and and dryden realized one
was needed so he invented the word and
it turned out to be transonic however
I'm going to walk away from the mic here
now so I can point it out a little
better as you can see it those of you
that are close enough it wasn't spelled
the way we spell it today it has 2 s's
they're here it's used again here it's
used again these are excerpts from John
stacks eights Wright brothers lecture of
December 1944 these two instances of
transonic spelled with 2 s's is from the
body of John stacks lecture and then
this case here is where dr. Dryden used
transonic spell that way in his
commentary on John stacks lecture dr.
dragon was very logical his reasoning
was like this transcontinental you take
the word trance you take the word
continental you push him together
transoceanic why not transonic three
years later dr. Dryden had left the
bureau standards was in the process of
leaving the Bureau standards and he was
on a train ride with dr. pretend
professor theodore von karman between
Aberdeen Maryland and Washington DC and
they were talking about the need for a
word to describe this region now the
case that I just showed you was in 1944
this is three years later and Dryden
said he had a word for it transonic
spelled with 2 s's von karman liked the
word but he didn't like the spelling and
as you can see that's the way von karman
wanted to spell it
in spite of Dryden's reasonable thinking
we all know which spelling has prevailed
one carmen explains it this way he says
Dryden was a logical and wanted two S's
I thought it wasn't always necessary to
be logical in aeronautics so I wrote it
with one ass very simple in the course
of their discussion or argument Dryden
took a little convincing so finally dr.
von karman quoted the German poet Goethe
or at least he paraphrased him and said
Getty says some logic is desirable but
to always be logical is horrible so I
guess Getty had to contend with nerds
back in those days so this gives us a
glimpse of the connection between Dryden
a place and transonic we tested the
first transonic airplane here and the
place is now named Dryden we are the
namesake and of course that was what
Williams test group called narok flight
test unit we've also established like a
link between Dryden the man and
transonic he generated the first
experimental airfoil data demonstrating
the critical drag rise he invented the
word transonic and he with Briggs
designed the first converging diverging
test model nozzle that provided real
aerodynamic data in this country it's
interesting to note that their data with
this converging diverging nozzle reached
a peak Mount number one point 08 the
first x1 air plane flight that exceeded
the speed of sound went to one point 06
only a two hundreds of a Mach number
difference between the two now
what about the man Wickham and transonic
research well he dominated transonic
aerodynamic research for at least three
decades perhaps I should be corrected
and it can be established that it was
significantly longer than that he first
the part that I know of he was an
important part of the team that
developed the slotted throat wind tunnel
he invented and conceived of the area
rule here we see the YF one or two on
the left and a 102 a on the right which
is the area ruled one in this case the
wave drag increment was reduced about
twenty-five percent by the area ruling
process here in addition of course he
invented and conceived of the
supercritical wing that we're talking
about today and in this case the drag
rides Mach number of this configuration
not the wing now but the configuration
was pushed up to about point nine seven
and this is a twerking lift coefficients
this is a d'cruz lift coefficient and as
he indicated earlier the drag rise Mach
number of the wing itself was just
nudging one in addition he invented and
conceived of the winglets project
winglets concept in this case the fuel
savings were about six percent in later
versions where the wing loading was
higher near the tips of the savings
would be greater
now what kind of agency or technical
organization can spawn if it indeed it
did spawn I didn't want that how do i
cancel it spawn or nurture such an
innovative research I like to think it's
an organization that can challenge
conventional wisdom conventional wisdom
is all right if it's considered for what
it really is it's a reasonable starting
place but a habitual reliance on
conventional wisdom leaves you
relatively close to the starting place
it increases the odds for the status quo
that's why it's encouraging for me to
see one of the things that our new
administrator said in a recent address
which i already showed you where he said
in the new NASA will welcome a diversity
of views and ideas from both inside and
outside the organization and perhaps the
words of retiring deputy administrator
James Thompson that he wrote in the
winter issue of the NASA magazine were
intended to challenge conventional
wisdom when he wrote I think sometimes
NASA could use a little more internal
controversy concern about conventional
wisdom isn't limited only to the
technical community for example here are
the paraphrase words of a noted
twentieth century theologian if you and
I agree on every matter one of us has
ceased thinking and perhaps dr. jb
Harvey has said it as well as anyone
this mismanagement of agreement not the
inability to manage conflict is a single
most pressing issue of most modern
organizations
I wander is a spirit conveyed by these
four individuals seemingly expressing
concern about conventional wisdom
representative of the environment that
dr. Wickham worked within during the
years that he dominated the field of
experimental transonic aerodynamics did
his revolutionary ideas thrive because
he worked in an environment that was
unencumbered by conventional wisdom not
quite as obvious as the need was for a
revolutionary breakthrough in reducing
the transonic wave drag there were a few
who said that the benefits from the area
rule were largely finest ratio effects
and there was conventional wisdom which
claimed that the benefits from the
reduced shock strength provided by the
supercritical airfoil would likely be
overshadowed canceled out by high trim
drag and some conventional conventional
wisdom adherence thought that the
winglets were simply extra aspect ratio
in disguise
they were wrong in every case the
original wind tunnel research work at
Langley added to the confirmation flight
data that was obtained out here at
Dryden and the numerous numerous
commercial and military applications of
these three technologies have
discredited conventional wisdom so the
score is innovative radical transonic
research that's how I like to describe
what he did three conventional wisdom
zero we should remember this score as we
continue toward nasp and the external
burning experiment and follow-on
supersonic and hypersonic vehicles after
that hypersonic vehicles must still pass
through the transonic toll gate there's
a toll extracted every time you pass
through and dr. Wickham is his research
has shown that the cost of the gate can
be lowered by innovative experimental
work and amazingly enough even if there
is not a red team or a blue team in
support that would be an inside thing
we have a recent example by the way that
I think reflects the encroachment of
conventional wisdom in the case of some
of the airplanes that flew in the Gulf
War some of the data I have looked at
and now this would be lift and drag data
of contemporary high-performance
aircraft using the war shall reveal an
erosion of aero design finesse a
slippage of aero design discipline by
discipline I mean no sticking to the
principles compared to aircraft designed
and built in the 50s and 60s to be more
specific the way drag is too high and
parasite drag is too high compared to
those earlier airplanes this indicates
to me the conventional wisdom does not
go away or become old-fashioned every
generation has its own form in fact it
seems to me like it's almost like
chicken pox or measles or mumps that
every generation has its cases of
conventional wisdom just because each
generation thinks it's more enlightened
it just doesn't work that way further
just because this airplane that was
dedicated today one of the two an
important transonic research facility
has been retired maybe some of you will
think of it as a museum piece and I
guess it is and it also represents
history and transonic research has a
history nevertheless we should not think
of transonic research in historical
terms transonic problems are still with
us the brilliant transonic innovations
of the 50s and 60s did not revoke the
laws of physics concerning transonic
flow for future generations it is my
hope that the supercritical wing
research airplane
when I walk by it out there and when
other people walk by it is my hope that
it will be representative of the
innovative transonic work of the past
but in addition it should remind us that
if we limit transonic research to the
past and only consider it history the
charges at the toll gate the transonic
toll gate will be unnecessarily high for
some future supersonic and hypersonic
airplanes this would be a good place I
think to go back to dr. Dryden and
indicate what he said quote the most
important tool in aeronautical research
comma even more than the large wooden
tunnel comma and then I'd like to add
this goes for airplanes to is the human
mind the most important tool for
aeronautical research is the human mind
credit that to dr. Crichton this is the
end of my perspective on this if you
call it a wrap up I want to now
acknowledge team members both at Langley
and here in closing it's appropriate to
mention some of the team members who
worked with dr. Wickham Tom Kelly Perry
Hanson Dennis Bartlett James blackwell
he's introduced as Mickey today that's
what he goes by I understand Larry
Lofton in an administrative capacity and
out here d dealer in an administrative
capacity Ted errors though he didn't
work on their plane that was dedicated
today was a team member on the
supercritical wing crew back at Langley
as you've already heard working with dr.
Wickham he worked primarily on the lower
aspect ratio of tact application his
transfer dryden significantly raised our
transonic and supercritical experience
and knowledge out here
as for the Dryden test research team I
want to recognize them in this closing
slide and we already know that we don't
have all the names on their loose tears
for example should be on there and he
isn't and I thought of another and I
don't believe John Kerry is what we're
going to do after cancel a finishes is
put this back up again along with a view
graph which shows the digital
fly-by-wire team members and then we'll
ask people out in the audience that that
know that there are names missing to
come up and write them on this tablet
please so we'll blank this out now and
will try to show it after 10 is finished
thank you very much