The contribution of aerodynamics to the development of recent sailplanes in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

A great effort is at present directed towards analytic development of new laminar airfoil sectona, structural development and testing of laminar wings suitable for sailplanes. Several sailplanes, recently designed employ airfoil sections of the NACA 6 family. Low drag of these sections in the laminar flow range enables a considerable increase of performance of the sailplanes. Unfortunately, sailplane designers stress the need for good circling flight performances and in this aspect, wings, designed on the basis of NACA 6 family of sections tend to be too fast. One possible solution to this problem is to use high lift devices in conjunction with the basic section.