Prandtl Wing Minimum Drag Update - Al Bowers

A presentation at the 2018 ESA Western Workshop.

For nearly a century Ludwig Prandtl’s lifting-line theory initially points to the elliptical spanload as the most efficient wing choice, and it has become the standard in aviation. Research in bird flight has increasingly generated data in disagreement with the elliptical spanload. In 1933 Prandtl published a little-known paper presenting a superior spanload. We argue this second spanload is the correct model for bird flight data and we present a unifying theory for superior efficiency and coordinated control in a single solution. Specifically, Prandtl’s second spanload offers the only solution to three aspects of bird flight: how birds are able to turn without a vertical tail; why bird formations have wingtips overlapped; and why narrow wingtips do not wingtip stall. The latest research data from a Fiber Optic Shape Sensing system and a pressure measurement data system were used on the wing, results are shown.

For more information on the Prandtl Wing project, please visit https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/programs_projects/PRANDTL/index.html

For more information about the ESA, please visit our website at http://www.esoaring.com.