Vickers Wellington and Wellesley aerofoil

Schneiderman, try http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/ to search R&M’s. They are having tech problems at the moment, but it still kind of works.
.

Yes another great resource but unfortunately few R&Ms have been scanned so far. Silly thing is that I have a complete set of inter-war R&Ms but no index. Looks like I’ll have to run through the annual reports to see if there was anything plausible and then dig them out from under the bed.

Noo.. we’d just be going round in circles!

Beermat – do you have a preference between Left Wing and Right Wing aerofoils ?? 😀

Schneiderman, try http://aerade.cranfield.ac.uk/ to search R&M’s. They are having tech problems at the moment, but it still kind of works.

I am very happy to see this thread on here! The only thing that would make Mrs. Beermat even more attractive to me would be be if she developed a pathological fixation with aerofoils to match my own.

One thing to bear in mind is that the max t/c ratio as described by convention at the time was a hypothetical t/c as at the centreline of the aircraft if the wings were carried on through, not that at the root. This was to avoid variations in where this was measured – instead it was made deliberately non-measurable, just a geometric ‘point in mid air’. Thus a Wellington could potentially have a max t/c of 17.7%, but a t/c at root of 17%. Not sure it did, just it’s possible.

I think it would be unlikely that Vickers would change the aerofoil between protoype and production. It would render much of the prototype flight testing irrelevant, for a start, as well as requiring fundamental re-drafting of the design.

Yes, Flight is generally my first port of call but in these cases has so far drawn a blank. I was wondering whether one of the ARC R&Ms might be a good source, but there is no searchable index for those that I know of

(lol) Actually, FP, you’ll find that some of us discuss aerofoils pathologically, and usually to the great boredom of the average Key punter! But, of course I do agree that this topic is widely misunderstood and unappreciated.

So far as the UIUC database– in all of its many guises– is concerned, in my own work I have found this to be a great starting point, but not always the final answer. It is of course to be expected in such a large database that errors will be found, and as well in many cases the correct aerofoil data is rather difficult to come by. Relating to Second World War fighter aviation, I would suggest that something like 50-60% of the listings within this database stood up to examination by technical documents and physical measurement. I also noted a pattern wherein the older the aircraft (heading back to the 30s, and even 20s), the more reliable the listed aerofoil. Ergo, for a 1930s bomber and prototype, I would tend to have fair confidence, personally, in the listed section vis a vis the UIUC.

Perhaps strangely, browsing through old issues of Flight magazine (flightglobal.com) will likely answer this question. Many of the technical articles on emerging types– especially in GB– were of a high standard, and such details as aerofoil, MAC, loadings, and such like are commonly addressed. Light years away from the modern concept of aviation reporting, let me add…

Any road, do have a good search through Flight. I reckon you might just find something there.

Good info here!
Airfoils are not often considered in aircraft discussion.

Thanks Keith.
Vickers made good use of RAF34 too, it was a profile for which plenty of data, full scale and wind tunnel, was available. At 12.6 t/c it found application in both biplane and monoplanes. Supermarine used a modified RAF34 for the outer wings of the Type 224 fighter. Wallis is on record as saying that a t/c of 17% was about the maximum he thought reasonable for the wing root, which is what he and Pierson appear to have used, thereabouts, for the Wellington.

I wish I could help more, but RAF 34 was in common usage in the early 1930’s, for example Comper used the RAF 34 for his Kite & Streak, but from information in Flight Global & the 3 view drawings available the section must have been thickened at the root in order accommodate the partially exposed retracted mainwheel. His earlier Mouse had a larger wing & larger wheels & was similarly thickened to about 16 to 17%. (I have just created flight sim models for the Kite & Streak, & am in the process of creating the Mouse). Percival used RAF 34 for the Vega & Proctor, whilst Miles tended to use Clark Y at about 20% TC ratio. So unless detail drawings or specifications are available, the link above is the best info available to my knowledge.
I cannot find any reference to the post war Vickers Viking which I believe used Wellington wings initially.
Keith

OK, I guess what I was getting at is two-fold

When did Vickers adopt the NACA 4-digit series aerofoils, was it with the production Wellington or with the B.9/32 prototype?

RAF34 has a t/c of 12.6. The Wellesley wing had an aspect ration of 8.85. Did they really use RAF34 unmodified, which would have been very bold for a cantilever wing utilising the as yet untried geodetic system, of was it thickened at the root. The GA drawings I have suggest the former, but they are not official Vickers drawings.

Yes a useful site but I wish that they would indicate their sources, hence my question 🙂

According to http://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/ads/aircraft.html, the Wellesley used RAF 34 & the Wellington used a NACA 24 at 17.7% TC ratio at the root. Not known what the 9/32 prototype used.
Useful listing I find for my models.
Keith