Subject: Dimple Tape drag reduction
From: Paul
Date: 6/27/2000, 9:40 PM


tommayer wrote:

Paul,
    What is your guess of its value on wings and stabilizers?  Tom

I don't know about dimple tape but vortex generators delay the stall.
I think this is one of those things that claims can be made for it
but it is hard to disprove. In the mean time we can sell it to the
technically naive and make a bunch of money. Hope springs
eternal.

Paul Lamar

I have to vote with Paul on this one.  I think the basic concept has
some application such as golf balls where it slightly increases the
length of attachement of the flow before it separates on the backside.
This greatly reduces the area that the adverse pressure in the
'burble' acts on, decreasing the drag.  However, an airfoil operating
away from the stall would not see any beneficial effect, IMHO.
MIGHT make a prop a bit better at the stall, i.e. low speed, say
early in TO roll.

Probably just BS in any real world sense.

Bill

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