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open access

The Aerodynamic Forces and Moments Exerted on a Spinning Model of the NY-1 Airplane as Measured by the Spinning Balance

Description: From Summary: "A preliminary investigation of the effects of changes in the elevator and rudder settings and of small changes in attitude upon the aerodynamic forces and moments exerted upon a spinning airplane was undertaken with the spinning balance in the 5-foot vertical tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The tests were made on a 1/12-scale model of the "NY-1" airplane. Data by which to fix the attitude, the radius of spin, and the rotational and air velocities were t… more
Date: February 7, 1933
Creator: Bamber, M. J. & Zimmerman, C. H.
open access

Aircraft Power-Plant Instruments

Description: From Summary: "The report includes a description of the commonly used types and some others, the underlying principle utilized in the design, and some design data. The inherent errors of the instrument, the methods of making laboratory tests, descriptions of the test apparatus, and data in considerable detail in the performance of commonly used instruments are presented. Standard instruments and, in cases where it appears to be of interest, those used as secondary standards are described."
Date: May 31, 1933
Creator: Sontag, Harcourt & Brombacher, W. G.
open access

Aircraft speed instruments

Description: From Summary: "This report presents a concise survey of the measurement of air speed and ground speed on board aircraft. Special attention is paid to the Pitot-static air-speed meter which is the standard in the United States for airplanes. A bibliography on air-speed measurement concludes the report."
Date: 1933
Creator: Beij, K. Hilding
open access

Application of Practical Hydrodynamics to Airship Design

Description: The purpose of the first two parts of this report is to present in concise format all the formulas required for computation of the hydrodynamic forces, so that they can be easily computed for either straight or curvilinear flight. Improved approximations are also introduced having a high degree of accuracy throughout the entire range of practical proportions. The remaining two parts of the report are devoted respectively to stability and skin friction, as functions of the same hydrodynamic forc… more
Date: 1933
Creator: Upson, Ralph H. & Klikoff, W. A.
open access

Determination of the theoretical pressure distribution for twenty airfoils

Description: This report gives the theoretical distribution of pressure at lift coefficients of 0, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 for 20 airfoils, calculated on the basis of a rigorous potential theory of arbitrary airfoils. It also provides tables from which the characteristics of the airfoils for any angle of attack in 2-dimensional potential flow are readily calculable. The theoretical values of the angles of zero lift, the lift and moment coefficients, and the ideal angles of attack are listed and some comparisons w… more
Date: June 2, 1933
Creator: Garrick, I. E.
open access

Effect of Viscosity on Fuel Leakage Between Lapped Plungers and Sleeves and on the Discharge From a Pump-Injection System

Description: "Test data and analysis show that the rate of fuel leakage between a lapped plunger and sleeve varies directly with the density of the fuel, the diameter of the plunger, the pressure producing the leakage, and the cube of the mean clearance between the plunger and sleeve. The rate varies inversely as the length of the lapped fit and the viscosity of the fuel. With a mean clearance between the plunger and sleeve of 0.0001 inch the leakage amounts to approximately 0.2 percent of the fuel injected… more
Date: December 13, 1933
Creator: Rothrock, A. M. & Marsh, E. T.
open access

The experimental determination of the moments of inertia of airplanes

Description: The application of the pendulum method to the experimental determination of the moments of inertia of airplanes is discussed in this report. Particular reference is made to the effects of the air, in which the airplane is immersed, on the swinging tests and to the procedure by which these effects are taken into account. This procedure has been used for some time, and the data on several airplanes for which the moments of inertia have been found are included.
Date: June 8, 1933
Creator: Soulé, Hartley A. & Miller, Marvel P.
open access

Experimental Verification of the Theory of Wind-Tunnel Boundary Interference

Description: "The results of an experimental investigation on the boundary-correction factor are presented in this report. The values of the boundary-correction factor from the theory, which at the present time is virtually completed, are given in the report for all conventional types of tunnels. With the isolation of certain disturbing effects, the experimental boundary-correction factor was found to be in satisfactory agreement with the theoretically predicted values, thus verifying the soundness and suff… more
Date: May 18, 1933
Creator: Theodorsen, Theodore & Silverstein, Abe
open access

Flight tests of the drag and torque of the propeller in terminal-velocity dives

Description: From Summary: "The drag and torque of a controllable propeller at various blade-angle settings, and under various diving conditions, were measured by indirect method on F6C-4 airplane in flight. The object of these tests were (1) to provide data on which calculations of the terminal velocity with a throttled engine and the accompanying engine speed could be based and (2) to determine the possibility of utilizing the propeller as an air brake to reduce the terminal velocity. The data obtained we… more
Date: August 22, 1933
Creator: Rhode, Richard V. & Pearson, Henry A.
open access

Increasing the air charge and scavenging the clearance volume of a compression-ignition engine

Description: The object of the investigation presented in this report was to determine the effects of increasing the air charge and scavenging the clearance volume of a 4-stroke-cycle compression-ignition engine having a vertical-disk form combustion chamber. Boosting the inlet-air pressure with normal valve timing increased the indicated engine power in proportion to the additional air inducted and resulted in smoother engine operation with less combustion shock. Scavenging the clearance volume by using a … more
Date: June 10, 1933
Creator: Spanogle, J. A.; Hicks, C. W. & Foster, H. H.
open access

The interference between struts in various combinations

Description: This report presents the results of wind tunnel tests made to determine the interference drag arising from various arrangements of streamline struts and round struts, or cylinders. Determinations were made of the interference drag of struts spaced side by side, struts in tandem, tandem struts encased in a single fairing, a strut intersecting a plane, and struts intersecting to form a v. Three sizes of struts were used for most of the tests. These tests show that the interference drag arising fr… more
Date: June 5, 1933
Creator: Biermann, David & Herrnstein, William H., Jr.
open access

Maneuverability investigation of an O3U-1 observation airplane

Description: From Summary: "This report presents the results of maneuverability tests of an O3U-1 observation airplane. This investigation is the third in a series of similar investigations requested by the Bureau of Aeronautics (Navy) for the purpose of comparing the maneuverability of different airplane types and to provide quantitative data for use in establishing a criterion or method for rating the maneuverability of an airplane. The two former investigations were conducted with the fighter types desig… more
Date: January 19, 1933
Creator: Thompson, F. L. & Kirschbaum, H. W.
open access

The N.A.C.A. High-Speed Wind Tunnel and Tests of Six Propeller Sections

Description: "This report gives a description of the high-speed wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The operation of the tunnel is also described and the method of presenting the data is given. An account of an investigation of the aerodynamic properties of six propeller sections is included" (p. 399).
Date: March 28, 1933
Creator: Stack, John
open access

The N.A.C.A. Tank: A High-Speed Towing Basin for Testing Models of Seaplane Floats

Description: "This report describes the high-speed model towing basin of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, usually referred to as the NACA Tank. The purpose of this piece of equipment is to enable the Committee to provide information and data regarding the performance of seaplanes on the water analogous to the information furnished concerning the performance of airplanes in the air" (p. 535).
Date: June 9, 1933
Creator: Truscott, Starr
open access

The NACA variable-density wind tunnel

Description: This report describes the redesigned variable-density wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics; it supersedes a previous report that described the original tunnel. The operation of the balance and the method of testing are explained and the method of correcting and presenting airfoil data is described. A summary of the formulas for predicting the characteristics of finite wings from the airfoil section data as they are usually presented is also given.
Date: November 23, 1933
Creator: Jacobs, Eastman N. & Abbott, Ira H.
open access

Negative Thrust and Torque Characteristics of an Adjustable-Pitch Metal Propeller

Description: This report presents the results of a series of negative thrust and torque measurements made with a 4 foot diameter model of a conventional aluminum-alloy propeller. The tests were made in the 20-foot propeller-research tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. The results show that the negative thrust is considerably affected by the shape and size of the body behind the propeller, that the maximum negative thrust increases with decrease in blade-angle setting, and that the dra… more
Date: May 23, 1933
Creator: Hartman, Edwin P.
open access

Performance of a fuel-injection spark-ignition engine using a hydrogenated safety fuel

Description: This report presents the performance of a single-cylinder test engine using a hydrogenated safety fuel. The safety fuel has a flash point of 125 degrees f. (Cleveland open-dup method), which is high enough to remove most of the fire hazard, and an octane number of 95, which permits higher compression ratios to be used than are permissible with most undoped gasolines.
Date: June 13, 1933
Creator: Schey, Oscar W. & Young, Alfred W.
open access

The physical effects of detonation in a closed cylindrical chamber

Description: Detonation in the internal-combustion engine is studied as a physical process. It is shown that detonation is accompanied by pressure waves within the cylinder charge. Sound theory is applied to the calculation of resonant pressure-wave frequencies. Apparatus is described for direct measurement of pressure-wave frequencies. Frequencies determined from two engines of different cylinder sizes are shown to agree with the values calculated from sound theory. An outline of the theoretically possible… more
Date: October 1933
Creator: Draper, C. S.
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Relation of Hydrogen and Methane to Carbon Monoxide in Exhaust Gases From Internal-Combustion Engines

Description: The relation of hydrogen and methane to carbon monoxide in the exhaust gases from internal-combustion engines operating on standard-grade aviation gasoline, fighting-grade aviation gasoline, hydrogenated safety fuel, laboratory diesel fuel, and auto diesel fuel was determined by analysis of the exhaust gases. Two liquid-cooled single-cylinder spark-ignition, one 9-cylinder radial air-cooled spark-ignition, and two liquid-cooled single-cylinder compression-ignition engines were used.
Date: August 17, 1933
Creator: Gerrish, Harold C. & Tessmann, Arthur M.
open access

Relative loading on biplane wings

Description: Recent improvements in stress analysis methods have made it necessary to revise and to extend the loading curves to cover all conditions of flight. This report is concerned with a study of existing biplane data by combining the experimental and theoretical data to derive a series of curves from which the lift curves of the individual wings of a biplane may be obtained.
Date: February 15, 1933
Creator: Diehl, Walter S.
open access

Stability of Thin-Walled Tubes Under Torsion

Description: "In this report a theoretical solution is developed for the torsion on a round thin-walled tube for which the walls become unstable. The results of this theory are given by a few simple formulas and curves which cover all cases. The differential equations of equilibrium are derived in a simpler form than previously found, it being shown that many items can be neglected" (p. 3).
Date: May 5, 1933
Creator: Donnell, L. H.
open access

Strength Tests of Thin-Walled Duralumin Cylinders in Compression

Description: "This report is the second of a series presenting the results of strength tests of thin-walled duralumin cylinders and truncated cones of circular and elliptic section. It contains the results obtained from compression tests on 45 thin-walled duralumin cylinders of circular section with ends clamped to rigid bulkheads. In addition to the tests on duralumin cylinders, there are included the results of numerous tests on rubber, celluloid, steel, and brass cylinders obtained from various sources" … more
Date: June 10, 1933
Creator: Lundquist, Eugene E.
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