New AIRFOIL wing on TV

Did anyone see the show on the educational channel about the guy that invented the new type of freezby. The guy spent about 25 years designing airfoil shapes and testing them. The new airfoil shape is flat on the bottom side and curved on the top side like a wing with on added feature. On top of the airfoil about where the spar is on our models is a tiny lip that curves up about 1/16". The guy threw a freezby across Nigra Falls. I don't remember the exact distance but it was about 1/4 mile.

Anyone know about the Cline Fogleman wing? The cline fogleman wing is like a symmetrical wing shape. It is symmetrical on both sides. The top side is curves like all symmetrical wings. The bottom side is flat but only behind the spar.

"The cline fogleman wing is like a symmetrical wing shape. It is symmetrical on both sides. The top side is curves like all symmetrical wings. The bottom side is flat but only behind the spar."

Do these 4 sentances contradict eachother, or is it my drugs? Wheeeeeee! Anybody? Steve

Gary,

I am familiar with the Kline-Fogelman airfoil. On your previous post about flat airfoils, I mentioned that I had actually built a combat plane with a simulation of that airfoil. It was a disaster.

A friend of mine from NASA got the original tunnel testing data. They stated it was one of the worst airfoils they had ever tested. I will look and see if I still have the report. I believe I got it back in about 1980.

I believe it's one of those situations where scaling it up, even to model airplane sizes, doesn't work. There were many toy gliders sold a couple of decades ago with the K-F airfoil, but I wasn't aware of a frisbee.

If I were to guess, the raised "barb" on a K-F airfoil probably justs simulates a turbulator, but does not contribute to lift. That may be why it works well on a frisbee.

I missed the show, but is this the thing that WHAM-O sells that looks like a ring about 14" diameter? I think the world's record distance for this is something like 1300+ feet. I can throw it almost 500', when I can keep the @!#$ thing level!

LAST EDITED ON Oct-16-04 AT 08:37 AM (CDT)
 
>I missed the show, but is this the thing that WHAM-O sells
>that looks like a ring about 14" diameter? I think the
>world's record distance for this is something like 1300+
>feet. I can throw it almost 500', when I can keep the @!#$
>thing level!

That is probably it. TV showed them and some guy throwing them. I have looked in all the toy stores and can not find one. I made one from thin plywood I think mine is a bit heavy. I can throw it about 400 ft. It flies like something is holding it up but after is looses speed it falls to the ground quick.

Gary, here is the info on the Kline-Fogleman airfoil:

http://home.comcast.net/~thomas.blanchard/cl/Kline-Fogleman.pdf

I scanned the file into an Adobe Acrobat "pdf". The note on the first page is important - "Bill" is the gentleman I knew. He was Chief of Engineering, Apollo Program, for several years and now does satellites for RCA. I do not know who "Whitcomb" and "Bernie" were, except that they worked for NASA in the old NACA division that tested airfoils.

The 2nd page is the drawing/design taken straight from the U.S. Patent application. The 3rd page is the bibliography included in the patent application, and references 60 Minutes on 6/29/73 and 8/29/76. 60 Minutes had this on twice, yet the NASA/NACA guy states - and I quote directly: "Whitcomb said this is the worst airfoil ever tested."

I guess 60 Minutes' fact stretching is not limited to politics.

Richard Whitman is the "W" in GAW-1 airfoil, the first section used on the original Rutan "Vari-Eze" canard surface. This was the first of a then new series of NASA General Aviation sections developed perhaps 25-30 (?) years ago and since superceded in efficiency by several other series, including some by John Roncz.

More notably, Whicomb was the developer of the Whitcomb winglet used on the Rutan aircraft and now seen on airliners, among others.

Finally, I believe Whitcomb may have originated the idea for the "area rule" principle that allowed some earlier (F-102??) production fighters to go supersonic, by giving a narrower waist (less cross sectional area) to fuselages in the area of the wing's high point. In this context, IF I remember a story correctly, Alexander Lippisch (designer of many tailless aircraft, among them the Me-163, and 'father of the delta')is said by NACA's Al Bowers to have referred to the then young Whitman thus: "Gentlemen, a genius."

I do not have time to verify this last part, but I think I'm remembering it right.

SK

Yep - I looked it up, "Whitcomb" must be Richard Whitcomb. I should have asked Stony who Bernie was, too, but I was still a dumb kid trying to see if a toy glider airfoil would work on a combat plane.