Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society

The Science of Flight

Author(s): Peter P. Wegener
Source: American Scientist, Vol. 74, No. 3, Special Book Issue (May-June 1986), pp. 268-278
Published by: Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27854100
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 The Science of
Flight
Peter P. Wegener

On 17 December 1903, in the presence of five local 1804 Sir George Cayley the first modern
suggested
witnesses, Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first airplane configuration by separating propulsion?usual
flights in history in a powered, heavier-than-air machine ly flapping wings?and fixed lifting surfaces (3). The
(Fig. 1). In the sand dunes of Kill Devil Hills, about 4 learned from Otto Lilienthal in Germany and
Wrights
miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, an old their friend Octave Chanute in the United States, who
dream of man finally became a
reality. Orville?as developed hang gliders, includingbiplane types (1, 4).
directed by the toss of a coin?piloted the first successful Lilienthal designed a wing profile that was adopted by
flight of the day. Wilbur steadied the craft on the the Wrights to produce greater lift?the aerodynamic
launching rail by holding onto the right wing. A 12 force that sustains an aircraft in flight (Fig. 2).
horsepower engine designed by the Wright brothers, The Wrights showed themselves to be brilliant
driving two large propellers via chains, pushed the first engineers full of original ideas on all aspects of flight.
Wright Flyer through the air for 12 seconds over a Although they were largely self-taught, we must not
distance of 120 feet, less than the length of a modern view the brothers as merely backwoods tinkerers. In
jetliner. On the fourth and last flight addition to building an exceptionally
of the morning, now with Wilbur at
light internal-combustion engine,
the controls, about 850 feetwere tra
they hit upon the ingenious idea,
versed in 59 seconds, foreshadowing The development based on their observation of birds,

offlyingmachines
the rapid advance that would be of controlling the warp of the outer
come characteristic of aviation. [Be
trailing edge of the wing by cables.
cause it is still in use in has a central scheme achieved attitude con
widespread occupied This

positionin thehistory
the field of aviation, the British sys trol about the roll or longitudinal axis
tem of measurement will be used of the airplane, and itwas theWright
throughout this article.] of technologyover the brothers' unique contribution to the
Looking back on the famous of flying machines (2).
development
day, Gibbs-Smith, the foremost his past century Their preeminence was truly remark
torian of early flight, is moved to ? ^ ???
able. It took until November 1907
quote
a
turn-of-the-century
human before a one-minute flight was
ac
ist, SirWalter Raleigh: "It is not extravagant to say that complished by Henry Farman near Paris, while the
the 17th of December 1903 . . .marks the beginning of a Wrights had flown over 30 minutes by 1905 (5).
new era in the
history of theworld" (2).Who could have The development of flyingmachines has occupied a
foreseen in 1903 that within one lifetime the modest central position in the history of technology over the past
beginnings at Kitty Hawk would lead to aircraft crossing century. Aeronautics has benefited from research in a
the Atlantic in three hours at twice the speed of sound, number of areas of science and technology. In turn, it
widebody jets carrying hundreds of people halfway has contributed to innovations of benefit to other fields.
around the globe without stopping, and spacecraft cen First there is the continuing quest for lightmaterials of
tering the atmosphere in fiery hypersonic flight? great strength to build resilient structures. Material sci
The Wrights were not the firstmen to fly. Balloons ence combines with
aeroelasticity, the study of the
and gliders had carried men off the ground formore dynamics of aircraft structures (6). The development of
than a hundred years before the historic flight. Others internal-combustion engines of low weight per unit of
had attempted to get powered airplanes off the ground, power, followed by the development of the jet engine
but without success. The Wrights were the first to start and rocket propulsion, has provided the push needed
and land at the same level in true powered, sustained, for air- and spacecraft (7). This has led to increased
and controlledflight(2). They had studiedand profited efforts in chemistry and process technology to handle
by thework of their antecedents and contemporaries. In esoteric fuels. The field of avionics involves the design of
electronic components and computers to operate guid
ance systems,
flight control, and airport approach.
Among all these disciplines, aerodynamics stands out; it
Peter P. Wegener is theHarold
Hodgkinson Professor of Engineering and
Science at Yale Educated at the he
dominates the shape of a flying machine. Together with
Applied University. University of Berlin,
worked at theUS Naval Ordnance the propulsion system and structural materials, it gov
Laboratory and theCaltech JetPropulsion
erns the an
Laboratory before joining the Yale faculty in 1960. His research interests weight, speed, and range of airplane. Our
include the application of
gasdynamics to problems in chemical physics.
focus will therefore be on aerodynamics?on what
Address: Mason Laboratory, Yale
University, New Haven, CT 06520. makes airplanes fly.

268 American Scientist, Volume 74

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 A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Figure 1. The first true powered, sustained, and controlled flights by

man took place on 17 December 1903, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
Wilbur had designed,while Wilbur steadied thewing on the starting
OrvilleWright piloted the firstflightof theplane he and his brother
ramp. This first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered a distance of 120 feet. The fourth and last flight of the day?this time with Wilbur at
the controls?covered 852 feet in 59 seconds. (Photograph courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.)

How air flows around an object speed the pressure decreases, and vice versa.
Using the concept of ideal?that is, inviscid?flow,
Aerodynamics is based on fluid dynamics, a field that mathematicians developed an extensive catalogue of
a
displayed strange dichotomy at the time of the first streamline patterns of complex situations by the inge
flights. The mathematical theory of flow?ignoring the nious introduction of a velocity potential. The actual flow
effects of viscosity or internal fluid friction?and the velocity is expressed as the derivative of this potential
great engineering-oriented body of empirical knowledge with respect to distance in the direction ofmotion. Using
of viscous fluids had developed in parallel but had not this definition of velocity and applying the law of
yet been reconciled. conservation of mass to a moving fluid yields Laplace's
Before looking at the problems created by this equation. A mathematical analogy to problems in elec
dichotomy, we need to set the contexts inwhich we will offers an arsenal of solutions to the La
tromagnetism
describe flows around objects. We will firstdeal with an place equation that benefits aerodynamics. Choosing
incompressible flow of constant density, which is valid proper boundary conditions for a given problem with
for air motion at speeds that do not exceed about one the surface of the object defined as a streamline produces
third of the speed of sound (760 mph at sea level). Next a picture
showing the streamlines at and away from the
we will view flows as shown in
Figures 2-5, with air body. A complete description of the flow field is finally
blown against a fixed object, as in a wind tunnel. This achieved by using Bernoulli's equation to compute the
environment is aerodynamically identical to that of a corresponding pressure (8, 9).
body moving through still air. We assume that the object Applying the theoryof ideal flow to bodies of
is infinitely extended at a right angle to the flow and the arbitrary shape reveals a strange mathematical result:
flow is steady?that is, the flow speed at any point is objects do not experience drag, a fact that obviously
independent of time. From the law of conservation of contradicts our experience. We can readily understand
mass we deduce that if the flow is constricted in the this contradiction, which is called d'Alembert's paradox,
vicinity of an object, it speeds up. Bernoulli's equation by looking at the cross-flow around the cylinder in
links the velocity to the pressure field; at higher flow Figure 3a. The streamlines mirror the symmetry of the

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 SIGMA XI

to a stop at
object; the center streamline brings the flow
the forward stagnation point. A second stagnation point
arises at the back. The pressure distribution is perfectly
balanced, and thus, since drag is computed from the
integral of pressure, there is no air resistance. The
identical result is found for the integration of the asym
metric pressure forces on an airfoil.
The parallel but largely unrelated development in
fluid mechanics concerns the study of real flows. From
work in ancient times on agricultural irrigation and
aqueducts to the construction of pipelines and steam
a great deal
engines and the rise of process technology,
had become known about the handling of viscous fluids.
Osborne Reynolds clarified the nature of the two modes
ofmotion of real fluids?laminar and turbulent flow?in
his study of pipe flow (10). In laminar flow, shear forces
are
governed by the molecular mechanism of viscosity;
in turbulent flow, the momentum transfer between
motions
adjacent layers is dominated by erratic, random
of the fluid (8). Such irregular motion is seen in the flow
in
issuing from smokestacks, in themovement of clouds
winds, and in the swirl in a stirred cup of coffee.
high
Figure 2. The lift of
an airplane's wings sustains the airplane in Turbulent flows produce higher shear forces, which we
its weight. A wing at an angle of attack a exposed will soon encounter on airfoils. Reynolds found that an
flight, opposing
an air
to an airflow experiences forces that, when integrated, show at high speeds. The
force R acting on the center of pressure CP. This force has two
initially laminar flow turns turbulent
transition between the two regimes is governed by the
the drag D opposite the direction of flight, and the lift
components, ratio of the inertial to the viscous forces acting on a given
L at a right angle.
fluid element. This ratio?now called
the Reynolds number?is given by
Re = VZ/v. Here V is the flow speed
and I a characteristic length. The de
nominator v, the ratio of viscosity to
an incom
density, is a constant in
pressible flow.
(a) The Reynolds number is of fun
damental importance, since it gov
erns similitude, the basis of model
testing. If the Reynolds numbers of
an
airplane and its scale model in the
wind tunnel are the same, the flow
patterns around prototype and mod
el will be identical. Forces such as lift
and drag are measured on the mod
el. Their value ismade dimensionless
a characteristic area
by division with
and Bernoulli's dynamic pressure (p/
2)V2, with p as density, to find the lift
(b) and drag coefficients cL and cD.
These coefficients apply equally to
the full-scale prototype, whose drag
and liftcan now be computed. There
are various methods by which the
number of a small model
Reynolds
can be made identical to that of its
Figure 3. The field of fluid dynamics displayed a strange dichotomy at the time of the first
prototype; increasing the wind tun
on one side and the
flights, with the concept of ideal flow developed by mathematicians nel speed is one of them. Reynolds
results of centuries of practical experience with real flows on the other side. The dichotomy
numbers of flying objects, ranging
is illustrated by the streamline patterns and graphs of distribution of surface pressure around
from floating dust particles through
a cylinder in cross flow. In ideal flow (a), which neglects viscosity, symmetrical streamlines
insects, birds, and small planes to
form around the cylinder axis. The real flow (b) looks identical to the ideal flow in front.
and cover about
Near the midpoint of the cylinder, however, the flow separates from the cylinder's surface, large jets airships,
and an arises. This is caused the formation of a thin ten orders of magnitude, from 10-1
asymmetrical pattern phenomenon by
boundary layer in which the flow is brought to rest with respect to the surface. A net drag is to 109 (22).
computed from the distribution of pressure. Itwas left to Ludwig Prandtl to

270 American Scientist, Volume 74

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 A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

unite the two separate strands of fluid dynamics in 1904

(12). Observing that fluids adhere to surfaces, he sug
gested that even for gases, which have very low viscosi
ty, air friction cannot be ignored altogether. There is a
narrow layer near an object?the boundary layer?in
which the air speed changes rapidly. The outer air speed
is brought to a full halt at the surface of a fixedwing in a
wind tunnel. The fluid also adheres to the surface of a
wing moving through air?that is, itmoves at the speed
of the airplane. One can see this in a similar situation by
looking down the side of a ship and observing how the
water closest to the hull moves with the vessel. Return
ing to the wind tunnel, we find that outside the narrow
strip of retarded air, the flow can indeed be treated as
inviscid and the ideal flow solutions are applicable.
Althoughboundary layersare thinat highReynolds
numbers, they can alter the flow fields drastically in
regions of increasing pressure such as those beyond the
midpoint of the cylinder in Figure 3b. There the bound
ary layer is slowed, a reverse flow appears close to the
surface, and the entire flow separates from the body in a
turbulent wake not unlike that behind a boat. The
pressure is low in the separated region, and the net
imbalance in pressure around thewhole cylinder creates
a
drag force. This result conforms to experience; the
vexing problem of the absence of air resistance predicted
by inviscid flow theory is solved. The boundary layer
thus has two effects: it adds a relatively small drag
through surface friction, and ithas a tendency to destroy
a phenomenon
orderly flows by inducing separation (4, 7, 9). Figure 4. Lift is produced by known as the Magnus
effect. We begin with a circulatory flow with concentric streamlines
around a rotating cylinder (a). To this flow is added a second flow
How liftraises an aircraft from left to right, like that shown in Figure 3a. A flow pattern is
created with asymmetrical streamlines
above and below the cylinder
To understand lifton a wing, one must consider interac
(b). The flow speed above is higher than that below. The pressure
tive processes that draw on all the features of fluid above is correspondingly lower, and the result is an upward force?
dynamics. Curiously, the first successful explanation of on the cylinder.
lift?acting
why a wing experiences an upward force at constant
speed was given strictly within the bounds of ideal flow
Frank a from an
theory. Lanchester, doctor of law who Asymmetry of the streamlines above and below the
early age was fascinated by flight, suggested with uncan object appears in the calculated flow pattern in Figure 4b.
ny intuition that a vortex acting on thewing is the cause The flow speed above is higher than that below, and in
turn the pressure is lower. An
of lift (13, 14). His thoughts are best understood by upward force?the lift?
returning to our cylinder. Assume a circulatory flow acts on the cylinder. This phenomenon is called the
around the cylinder as shown in Figure 4a. Now add an Magnus effect (15).
airflow from left to rightwhile keeping the vortex going; The Magnus effect also manifests itself in side forces
that is, combine the ideal flows of Figures 3a and 4a. such as those that have long been known to artillerists,

Figure 5. A sequence of ideal flows similar to that shown in Figure 4 demonstrates how lift is produced on a wing. In (a), the basic flow
around the wing includes a rearward stagnation point?the location of zero speed?on the upper surface. An imaginary circulatory flow
around the wing (b) is added. The result yielded by this combination is shown in (c). The flow speed on the upper surface is higher than
that on the lower surface, the pressure is lower, and lift is generated. The strength of the circulation is chosen to fulfill the Kutta condition of
smooth flow at the trailing edge.

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 SIGMA XI

the wing?the circulation?is determined by a nonzero

line integral around a closed path surrounding thewing.
The integrand is the component of the local flow speed
on the contour in the direction of the aircraft's motion
multiplied by the differential
path element along the
circulatory streamline. The imaginary vortex is fixed in
space relative to the wing but consists of continually
changing fluid particles. This subtle idea provides the
basis for defining a realistic flow around the wing
leading to a lift force.
The value of the circulation determines the behavior
of the flow near the trailing edge of the wing at a given
flight speed. No actual steady flow can follow the
L_:_ _ I" I streamlines calculated for ideal flow without circulation

Figure 6. The process by which the circulation around a wing is (Fig.5a), since an impossiblyhigh flow speedwould be
actually created has two stages. As the wing is set in motion (a), the required for the air to round the trailing edge. Kutta
pattern of ideal flow shown in Figure 5a is quickly established suggested that a specific value of the circulation of Figure
before the effects of viscosity alter the streamline pattern. At the 5b must be chosen for smooth steady flow to exist at the
trailing edge is formed a starting vortex, which is shed and moves
trailingedge of thewing with equal flow speeds on the
back from the wing (b). The smooth flow shown in Figure 5c is
upper and lower surfaces. This important idea, the
established.
unique contribution of its originator, is now called the
Kutta condition (17). If its criteria are met, the pattern of
Figure 5c emerges. From Bernoulli's equation we find
whose spinning shells deviate from trajectories located that the pressure on the bottom surface is higher than
in a plane. It applies equally to spheres. The trajectories that on the top surface, generating lift.The lift force per
of the golf ball, the tennis ball, and the pitchers curve unit width of the infinitely extended wing can be com
ball come tomind (16). puted from the product of the exact value of the circula
The mathematician Wilhelm Kutta, stimulated by
Lilienthal's glider flights, arrived independently at a
theoryof lift in 1902. He was followed by Nikolai The basis ofmodern aerodynamics was
Zhukovsky, whose work was generally overlooked at set out in the uncommonly short period
the time (17). A fascinating sequence of debates and
misunderstandings arose, all fortunately ignored by the
from1902 to 1904
practitioners of flight, who already knew thatwings do
provide Kutta
lift. originated themathematics for lifton
airfoils in ideal flow. He added an imaginary circulatory tion that ensures the Kutta condition, the air speed, and
flow to thebasic flow around thewing predictedby ideal the air density. The remarkably dose agreement of
theory (Fig. 5). The strength of the vortex surrounding calculated lift values and those measured proves that
ideal flow theory successfully predicts lift.
With these discoveries, the basis ofmodern aerody
namics was set out in the uncommonly short period
air speed
from 1902 to 1904. The theory of liftwas quantified in
-* 1902, the firstflightstookplace in 1903,and idealflow
theory was reconciled with the observation of real flow
by means of the concept of the boundary layer in 1904.
The questions of whether the imaginary vortex around
the airfoil really exists, how the finitewings of an actual
airplane behave, and how drag can be explained were
answered over a much longer period of time?into the
1920s?again with Lanchester and Prandtl and his col
leagues in the forefront. An established technology of
aircraft and their associated systems arose concurrently,
and aeronautics changed our modes of transportation
profoundly, altered the pursuit of war, opened up once
inaccessible regions of the earth, and removed the last
uncharted areas from our maps.
To pursue the story of lift to its end, we must now
find a physical explanation for circulation. Turning from
Figure 7. A closer view of the upper surface of the profile shown in
6b reveals the presence of a thin, turbulent boundary
the wind-tunnel view of air flow, we will consider the
Figure layer.
The distributionof velocity shows the rapidlychangingair speed unsteady, time-dependent flow around an airplane start
from the surface, where it is zero, to the edge of the boundary layer. ing from rest. As the airplane begins to roll down the
The strong shear creates vortices as shown; these eddies continually runway, the flow of Figure 6a for ideal theory actually
feed the circulation set up around the wing.
appears. The air from below the trailing edge moves

272 American Scientist, Volume 74

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 A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

upward to the low-pressure region at the top. The

difference in velocity between the neighboring layers
leads to high shear and creates a starting vortex which is
as the speed of the aircraft
quickly left far behind
increases (Fig. 6b). One can verify the existence of this
swirl by moving a spoon through soup that has some
tracing particles (e.g., parsley) near the surface.
a mate
The starting vortex produces of equal
strength but opposite direction to conserve the angular
momentum of the flow (25). This opposing vortex starts
the clockwise circulation around the wing in the bound
vortex that, as we have seen, persists in flight at a fixed
we have
cruising speed. At this stage of steady motion,
to abandon ideal theory and invoke viscous effects in the
boundary layer on the upper wing surface. At the high
Reynolds numbers of an airplane, this boundary layer is
turbulent. Because it is thin, large velocity gradients
causing significant shear stress prevail adjacent to the
surface. The resulting vorticity in the boundary layer
shown in Figure 7 induces a continual downward flow.
If at any time the speed of the airplane or its attitude is
altered, the circulation responds quickly to reestablish
the Kutta condition.
For finitewings, the difference in pressure between
upper and lower sides produces vortices that are shed
from the wing tips as the air from below turns upward
(Fig. 8). These vortices follow the aircraft far down
stream, and the combination of the starting vortex and
the wing-tip vortices creates a dangerous downwash
that must be avoided by small airplanes following a
larger one. The energy required to swirl the wing-tip
vortices produces a major portion of the drag force on
the wing. This induced drag is a direct consequence of
the flow that produced lift. In addition, forward motion
is impeded by resistance caused by surface friction in the
a near the
boundary layer and slight flow separation
trailing edge. The bound vortex of the circulation, to
a swirling,
gether with the wing-tip vortices, forms Figure 8. Wing-tip vortices are produced by the difference
m
horseshoe-shaped filament of fluid. Since, according to a between the lower and the upper surface of a wing. Such
pressure
theorem adduced by Helmholtz, no vortex filament can vortices are made visible in this photograph by the chemical dust
terminate inside an extended fluid, the vortex must be being sprayed from the airplane. The vortices churn inward and
closed (18). This closure is provided by the starting cause induced drag. (Photograph courtesy of the National
vortex, resulting in the composite picture shown in Agricultural Library, Forest Service Photo Collection.)

Figure 9. The air swirls in unison from the outside over

the top to the inside of the closed vortex, which looks
like a huge, square smoke ring.
A number of important details have been omitted tipVortex
from this account of the basic physics of lift?for exam
ple, the distribution of lift forces on the wing, the
downwash fromwing tip towing tip, and the effects of
the presence of a fuselage. A wide wake forms behind
the entire wing, with prevailing downward air currents
from the wing-tip vortices inward. This downwash
requires additional lift?and consequently imposes addi starting
tional drag?for an aircraft closely following another
vortex
one, as for example during refueling operations in flight
(7). Outside the wing tips an opposite flow, a trailing
upwash, exists (Fig. 8). Flocks ofmigrating birds use this tipvortex
upward air motion to increase the liftand consequently a wing in steady
Figure 9. The complete vortex system created by
decrease the drag of the followers in a V formation. Full flow includes the circulation?the bound vortex?around the wing,
a
advantage of this aerodynamic effect appears for wing two wing-tip vortices, and the starting vortex, which was shed by
tip spacing of one-quarter of a bird's wing span (29). the unsteady flow and left far behind. The system is closed, with

By using an engine to push a fixedwing through the identical vortex motion from the outside to the inside of the loop.

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 SIGMA XI

air, we have established that lift is produced without a

flapping motion, a fact apparently first realized by
Cayley. A simple application of Bernoulli's equation
does not suffice to explain lift; only the theory of
707/DC-8? circulation explains why an aircraft can in fact fly on its
back. Now a fuselage?a body that adds to the lift?can
Com?t be attached to the wing, and small control surfaces can
be added to ensure stability and maneuverability about
the three axes of the craft. Each control surface is itself a
4?D
littlewing whose actions induce moments between the
'
pc-7 : :c center of pressure and the center of gravity, altering the
cm , .': direction of the resulting air force to permit an aircraft to
*
L-749 Coristell?ti?ni^r Vtecoynt climb, descend, roll, and turn (20, 21).
377 Stratocruiser ^/
The liftproduced by a well-designed wing increases
Cbnvair240
linearly with the angle of attack; the ratio of lift to drag
DC-4
approaches 20 to 1 in a modern transport. However,
Stratoliner
there is a crucial limit to the angle of climb; when it is
reached, the flow on the upper wing surface separates.
The boundary layer cannot overcome the adverse pres
sure gradient on the upper surface near the trailing edge.
-'V^i'.' Separation?or stall?results in a loss of lift,which can
lead to disaster.
19?? su
r:^.: ... --Yrar^'I^^M??' Finally, we must merge our understanding of lift
in airplane design following
with an understanding of drag from skin friction and
Figure 10. The remarkable progress
World War I, based on progress in aerodynamics and the building minor separation near the tail end of wings, fuselage,
of increasingly powerful engines, is demonstrated by this graph of engine enclosures, and protuberances (parasite drag).
commercial aircraft speed. A quadratic increase of speed with time
Depending on the power plants used and the purpose of
levels off abruptly at the start of the jet age, around 1960. Beginning the airplane, performance calculations are now feasible.
at that time, large jetliners fly in the stratosphere at transonic But the step from knowledge of basic aerodynamics to
speeds?Mach number 0.7 to 0.8 and above. (After ref. 31.) the design of a complete airplane requires an extraordi
nary amount of specialized skill in the additional areas
outlined at the beginning. Although aircraft design?in
particular wing design?has in recent years been sys
tematized by the production of catalogues of shapes
tested in wind tunnels and simulated on computers, a
great deal of art and intuition remain key ingredients of
success.

Speed and efficiency

Based on progress in aerodynamics and the availability
of increasingly powerful internal-combustion engines,
aeronautics advanced rapidly in the period following
I World War I. Airmail and passenger service was intro
duced. The milestone of scheduled Pacific service was
|lQ* passed in 1935, and large-scale transatlantic flying fol
lowing the introduction of jet turbines began in the late
1950s. A quadratic increase of commercial aircraft speed
with time terminated only at the start of the jet age (Fig.
10). Here the flight speed leveled off near the speed of
sound.
10* Of course, speed alone is not a sufficient yardstick
10? for the performance of an aircraft. Aerodynamics, pow
Stood (mehj er, and weight control jointly determine the useful
11. The can be
payload, which is theweight to be carried beyond that of
Figure practicality of different modes
of locomotion
measured by the transport economy index?power divided by the the craft, fuel, and crew. Payload dominates the devel
product of weight and speed?as a function of speed. A comparison
of the traction of different objects in motion {demonstrates the price
opment of transport. Smith points out that it is this
that must be paid for speed. Gabrielli and von Karman plotted a
aspect of aeronautics in which the US aircraft industry
line indicating an empirical minimum of the index that can be
has led theway (22).
achieved at a given speed by a given type of locomotion Gabrielli and von Karman developed a method to
(11, 23).
K?chemann has suggested that in the future transport planes might reckon the price thatmust be paid for increasing speed
break through the limit line at roughly the efficiency of a pedestrian (23). Speed is tied to tractive power per unit of weight,
(24). and a dimensionless transport economy index can be

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 A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

defined dividing themaximum power of a vehicle by the

Table 1.Aircraftdevelopment: Increases inweight, speed, and
product of its weight and its maximum speed (12). ability to lift
this index as a function of speed, all manner of
Plotting Takeoff
locomotion can be compared Wing
(Fig. 11). These compari Speed loading
sons suggested an empirical limitbeyond which a specif weight
Year (lb) (mph) (lb/ft2)
ic vehicle would become impractical. More recently,
K?chemann that aircraft might WrightFlyer 1903 750 35 1.5
proposed supersonic
break through this barrier in the future; their index
DC-3 1935 25,000 180 25.0
would be somewhat above that of a pedestrian (24). The Douglas

are
composite picture shows that ships and rail transport Douglas DC-6 1947 105,000 315 72.0

quite efficient; a race car is permitted to be inefficient.

Commercial airliners have an index at their highest Boeing 747 1970 800,000 570 150.0

speeds that parallels the limit line. source: Ref. 31

Another look at the progress of aviation is provided
by Table 1. The increases in takeoffweight and cruising
since 1935 are astounding. The aerodynamic ad ducing sweepback, the characteristic V-shape of the
speed
vances inherent in the combination of high payload and wings seen on larger airliners today (26). The Mach
number at which local supersonic regions first appear
over an airfoil is dominated by the speed component at a

Every squarefootof thewing ofa B-747 right angle to the leading edge. That crucial component
is determined by the Mach number of flight times the
can support about 40 bricks, or three cosine of the angle of sweep, typically 30? or so. In turn

fully loadedsuitcases
the flight speed can be increased before the criticalMach
number is reached. If a straight wing has a criticalMach
number of 0.7, a 30? sweepback moves this value up to
increased speed are represented by the wing loading. 0.8.

This figure tells us the weight per unit area of wing A more recent discovery that has further eased the
surface that can be lifted into the air. Every square foot of problems of transonic flow brings us to the forefront of
thewing of a B-747 can support about 40 bricks, or three
fully loaded suitcases (7). These dramatic developments
have led to revolutionary changes in public transporta
tion (Fig. 12). After a peak during World War II, railroad
traffic in the United States dropped by four-fifths to
about 20 billion passenger-miles in 1957, a year inwhich
rail, bus, and air traffichad equal volumes. Since then,
flying has far outdistanced other modes of public trans
rose markedly with the
portation. International air traffic
jet age; US airlines a large portion of the total
supply
volume.

Near the speed of sound

The most recent aerodynamic successes involve progress
in flightnear and above the speed of sound. As we have
seen, cruising speed has remained constant for a number
of years near the speed of sound, at a Mach number
(flight speed divided by the speed of sound) of about 0.8.
At such speeds, air can no longer be treated as incom
in
pressible. Increasingly powerful changes of pressure
the flow field cause changes in the air density; a new
flight regime is entered. A variety of strange phenomena
arise, such as a drastic increase in drag (the "sonic
barrier" of legend), buffeting, loss of lift, and control
reversal. Such unexplained behavior was discovered Vto?r
empirically in dive tests of fighter aircraft and experimen
12. The of aircraft design has led to
tal flights in the 1940s (25). Although theoretical and Figure rapid development
changes in public transportation in the United States
data on supersonic flows existed, flows at revolutionary
experimental and around the world. This graph shows the dramatic increases in
transonic speeds?speeds at which mixed flow fields of of US airlines'
air traffic since 1950, including passenger-miles
sub- and supersonic regions form near the craft?were domestic service (light colored line), US airlines' total domestic and
an aircraft flies near the speed
poorly understood. When foreign service (colored line), world airlines except those of the
of sound, a local supersonic zone develops on top of the Soviet Union and China (gray line), and all world
airlines (black

wings (9). Addressing this problem, Adolf Busemann line). The circle marks the year when US rail, bus, and air traffic
had suggested abandoning the straight wing and intro had the same mileage. (After ref. 32.)

1986 May-June 275

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 SIGMA XI

current aerodynamics. A new wing contour was pro air compression?appear; they propagate through the
posed by Richard Whitcomb, who had pioneered the atmosphere and are modified by it, not unlike light rays
design of airfoils in conjunction with new fuselage passing through a nonuniform medium. These two
shapes that increase efficiency above the critical Mach conical waves create a sonic boom, a nearly instanta
a
number (27). Whitcomb's design includes slight curva neous pressure rise sweeping the ground surface at
ture at the top of the nearly flat airfoil and a thin trailing supersonic speed, alarming humans and animals and
edge. This shape, the so-called supercritical wing section damaging structures. Such undesirable side effects have
(Fig. 13), has now been brought to a high degree of led to congressional legislation to ban supersonic flight
perfection, in part as a result of the success of calcula over land. Intensive research to find aerodynamic config
tions in numerical fluid dynamics involving high-speed urations that operate shock-free at supersonic speeds has
computers (28, 29). The flow over the top of the wing not been successful, and consequently the attention of
exhibits an extended supersonic zone terminated by a aeronautical engineers has in part been redirected to
transonic flow.
Supersonic flightwith its associated changes of air
Improvements in ground transportation density involves
iswarmed
thermodynamics; the air in the bound
in comparison with the surrounding
are clearlyneeded ifwe are to takefull ary layer
is
atmosphere. The surface temperature of the Concorde
advantage of aeronautical innovations higher than the boiling point of water; the metal skin
in flight, and the airplane is elongated by 9
expands
inches (30). At flight speeds above Mach number 2 (the
weak shock leading to negligible separation. Additional, speed at which the Concorde travels), aluminum alloys
albeit manageable, problems arise at the thin trailing lose their strength and can no longer be used. The skin
edge and wing tips (21), but economical flight close to temperature of the space shuttle rises substantially above
the speed of sound is now possible. In fact, the first the surface temperature of the sun as the shuttle reenters
airplanes incorporating these findings are now joining the earth's atmosphere at hypersonic Mach numbers.
the fleets of the airlines. Insulating materials, the well-known tiles, shield the
Parallel to the development of transonic aircraft has interior during the short time of exposure to extreme
proceeded the design of supersonic airplanes such as the rates of heat transfer. Yet powered commercial flight
British-French Concorde and military aircraft of various under such conditions is being seriously considered as a
sizes (25). Supersonic aerodynamics is a mature disci prospect for the future.
pline. Then why do we not have a fleet of supersonic
airliners? The answer is suggested in part by the photo
Future of commercial flying
graph in Figure 14 showing the flow field around a rifle
bullet moving at supersonic speed, whose Mach number From theWright Flyer to the Concorde, with flights to
is a little above that at which some years back the US the moon including two passages through the earth's
supersonic transport was designed to travel. Strong atmosphere, aeronautics and astronautics have made
shock waves?extremely narrow discontinuities of rapid tremendous progress in just one lifetime. Who could
have foreseen such an evolution in such a short period?
Based on this experience, it is daring to speculate on the
future of commercial flying, yet some thoughts may
suggest possible developments.
It is safe to predict a continuation of the trend in
improvements directed toward lower cost per passen
ger-mile at equal or higher speed. Such improvements
will concentrate on reducing drag by modifying wing
tips, improving engines, using lighter materials, and
even retaining laminar boundary layers over the
possibly
a
wings. Improved supercritical wings, combined with
waisted fuselage to hold the total cross section constant
along the length of the craft, will yield lower drag
economically at higher speed (28, 29). Airliners will then
be able to fly close toMach number one, a speed gain of
about 10 to 15%, giving a substantial advantage for very
long flights. However, the currently prevailing cruising
speed ofMach number 0.8 for long-range transports will
Figure 13. A new shape, the so-called supercritical wing section, has most likely be retained for many years. The ease of
been developed to lower the drag encountered by a plane flying at
transonic speeds. Note the smaller curvature of the upper surface scheduling and the advantages of safe trafficcontrol?in
as the Atlan
and the thin trailing edge. This shape produces a well-controlled, particular over heavily traveled routes such
flow region on the upper surface. Because the
tic?are self-evident.
extended supersonic
terminates in a weak shock wave, minor The often-invoked criterion of speed has serious
supersonic region only
followed reattachment of the limitations. Speed is not feltby people; time and comfort
separation occurs, by immediate
boundary layer. The resultis high liftwith relatively low drag at of travel dominate our responses. The airplane designer
high subsonic Mach numbers. K?chemann studied the frequency of marriages in Ox

276 American Scientist, Volume 74

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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ???????i? A CENTURY OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH ?

fordshire as a function of distance

and travel time between villages (24).
The maximum distance over which
marriage partners were found was
remarkably constant over the 200
years between 1650 and 1850, re
maining at 10 km, or a travel time of
about two hours. With the advent of
the railroad, the distance increased,
yet the time remained at two hours.
Taking this as a limit for comfortable
travel, should we then devise trans
ports to connect the major popula
tion centers of the world in two
hours? This would demand hyper
sonic aircraft flying at extremely high
Mach numbers in the upper atmo
sphere and beyond. Here the sonic
boom problem vanishes, and yet past
experience militates against such a
development. The parallel develop
ment of a military aircraft powered
by ramjet engines to attain orbitwith
out boosters and return by itselfmay
in the long run point the way to the with a
Figure 14. The origin of sonic booms is demonstrated by this photograph?taken
fulfillment of K?chemann's dream. the flow around a fired from a rifle. The
special optical system?of projectile hunting
The concept of travel time rather projectile is traveling at a rate of 3,800 feet/sec?M = 3.4 and Re = 106. In
supersonic flow
than speed per se is valid and ought the variations of density are substantial, especially across shock waves. An exposure time of
to guide future developments. It is one microsecond arrests the features of the flow: two strong, conical shock waves arise at the

here that incentives to turn to new tip and near the origin of the turbulent wake that trails the projectile. An aircraft flying at
the same speed at high altitude generates a similar pattern of shock waves, which extend
types of aircraft and other means of
are The small through the atmosphere to the ground, where they cause the sudden, sharp pressure pulses
transport important. that are called sonic booms. (Photograph by the author.)
airplanes used by commuter airlines
are subject to the vicissitudes of
weather. Short takeoff and landing
craftpowered by propjets have proved to be uneconomi
cal. Research in the future should be directed to develop References
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mon. Week & Space Tech.

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