Abstract
THE new 24-ft. wind tunnel at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, opened by the Secretary of State for Air on April 5, is the largest in Great Britain. It can contain a complete aeroplane, all of the machine except the outer portions of the wings being in the air stream and under observation. Air speeds equivalent to 115 miles per hour are obtained. The principal immediate use of this type of tunnel is the investigation of ‘interference’ between various bodies in juxtaposition, such as airscrews and engine cowlings, which cannot be studied precisely upon small-scale models. Such problems cannot be examined as fully as is necessary in actual flight owing to the uncertainty of the steadiness of the air at the moment of taking an observation, and moreover, such experimental flying with new and untried design ideas involves considerable risk, and often delay, in bad weather. This tunnel is not the largest in the world, there being a 60 ft. X 30 ft. one at Langley Field, United States, and a 50 ft. span one in France (see NATURE, Feb. 16, 1935, p. 252). It is interesting to note that one of the first machines to be investigated in this channel will be a new one that has exceeded its anticipated performance in certain respects by so much as to shake confidence in the accepted methods of estimating the total air resistance of combinations of differently shaped bodies.
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A New Wind Tunnel. Nature 135, 576 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/135576b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/135576b0