FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Floating like a butterfly on planes - the "Ground Effect"
Old Jan 3, 2016 | 6:38 pm
  #17  
Efrem
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Originally Posted by BOH
This is a very well known aerodynamic effect and one that Concorde wing designers perfected and harnessed to be able to land so smoothly at high speeds. All achieved long before complex computer modelling allowed wing shapes to be perfected like today.
Indeed. I did a term paper on a wind tunnel study of ground effect as a junior aero engineering student in 1962. It was well known at the time, both as theory and in practice; my project was hardly cutting-edge research.
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