Wind-Tunnel Measurements of the E-8C Modeled with and Without Winglets

摘要

Wind-tunnel measurements conducted on a variety of E-8C configurations were collected and compared to flight-test data. The primary goal of this study is to collect baseline data relating to the directional stability characteristics of the actual E-8C geometry. The wind-tunnel tests used precise geometrically 140:1 scaled-down models of the E-8C and were constructed using a rapid prototype builder. The series of wind-tunnel tests quantified the extent to which the radome directionally destabilizes the clean configuration of the aircraft. As has been documented in the literature, the radome does lead to a decrease in the slope of the linear portion of the C_(n-β) curve. However, the radome did not appear to introduce any unusual nonlinear effects at larger sideslip angles.