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.
Wind Tunnel
Accelerate, pull and fly-thats not all there is to the takeoff. Barnaby Wainfan takes a second-by-second look at the aerodynamics of the takeoff: when it works, and when it doesn't.
Wind Tunnel
Recently, there has been increasing interest in the efficiency of all vehicles, including airplanes. Designers are seeking to make airplanes that perform better and burn less fuel. Barnaby Wainfan takes a close look at the aerodynamics and mathematics behind this deceptively complex process.
Wind Tunnel
Aerodynamics Engineer Barnaby Wainfan dissects one of the most common and possibly least understood flight maneuvers: turns.
Flying Qualities and the Horizontal Tail
An airplane's horizontal tail is critical to stabilizing the airplane in pitch, trimming out pitching moments caused by the wing and providing control power for maneuverability.
Wind Tunnel
Multiple engines complicate design, because not only must the airplane be able to maintain flight on one engine, but also the pilot must be able to control it. Lateral/directional stability issues are key;
Wind Tunnel
In order to bank the airplane and execute a turn properly, adverse yaw must be countered or eliminate altogether. The discussion of how to do this includes rudder control, aileron-rudder interconnects, directional stability, differential ailerons, aileron drag and the use of spoilers;
Wind Tunnel
The aerodynamics of an airplane sometimes don't cooperate with the pilots desire to roll, and instead produce both yaw and roll. Contributing factors are aileron parasite drag, induced drag between the wings and changes in the roll rate itself;
Wind Tunnel
Yaw rarely occurs without rolling, and roll rarely occurs without yawing. This month Barnaby Wainfan discusses coupled motion, including adverse yaw, the spiral mode and Dutch roll.
Wind Tunnel
This month columnist Barnaby Wainfan takes a look at how the airplane responds in roll when the pilot is maneuvering. Two key factors are roll acceleration and the steady-state roll rate.
Wind Tunnel
The discussion of lateral/directional stability continues with an examination of dihedral effect and the effect of roll;
In Case You Missed It
Mojave Gang MoVenture
Elliot Seguin sets a point-to-point record with a little help from his friends.
Ask the DAR
Overweight LSA, paperwork confusion for a DAR inspection, converting an SLSA to an ELSA.
