Barnaby Wainfan
Barnaby is a Technical Fellow for Northrop Grumman’s Advanced Design organization. A private pilot with single-engine and glider ratings, Barnaby has been involved in the design of unconventional airplanes including canards, joined wings, flying wings and some too strange to fall into any known category.
Variable Geometry Cooling System
The way to reduce or eliminate excess cooling drag in cruise is to use a variable-geometry cooling system that can change shape to control the amount of air flowing through the cowling.
Cooling Outlet Design
The design must focus on sufficiently cooling the engine while minimizing drag.
Cooling: Internal Flow
Cooling the engine and its accessories requires a continuous flow of air to come in from outside the airplane to absorb heat from the...
Cooling Inlets, Part 2
As we saw last month, an ideal cooling air inlet system should ingest air from the free stream and bring it to rest or...
Cooling Inlets
The cooling air inlet serves two functions: First, and most important, the inlet must ingest enough air to properly cool the engine and accessories...
Cooling
As we saw in last month’s edition of Wind Tunnel, only about one-third of the energy released by burning the fuel in an internal...
Power and Heat
The cooling system is a major component of the airplane. It has a large impact on the performance and reliability of the machine. The...
Prop Blade Effects
We often treat the propeller as a uniform “actuator disc” and the slipstream as a uniform stream tube of accelerated and swirling air. While...
Torque and P-factor
We’ve touched on this during previous discussions of slipstream (most recently in the April 2023 issue), but there are several power and propeller effects...
In Case You Missed It
AI Amuses, But It Can’t Replace Aviation Experts
AI can't replace real aviation expertise—building safe aircraft requires hands-on knowledge, experience, and a well-calibrated BS meter.
Light Stuff
The author reviews the Kappa KP-5 LSA, imported by Kappa Aircraft from the Czech Republic. This is a conventional, low-wing, trigear configuration airplane, with a staggered seating arrangement that allows more room for each occupant, while keeping the cockpit narrow. The KP-5 is powered by a 100-horsepower Rotax 912 ULS engine and a Woodcomp three-blade prop, and has a useful load of 583 pounds. Full-power airspeed is stated as 138 mph. Avionics equipment includes a Dynon EFIS and engine monitor, Garmin GPSMAP 496 and Garmin transponder.
Wind Tunnel
Taxi testing may seem to be a mere formality, but it is a vital step toward bringing a new aircraft to flight, and is not without its dangers.