Results of research work done in this country and the subject matter of Refs. 1 to 4 on the measurement and analysis of the air drag of seaplane hulls are collected together in this report. The data consist of the results of systematic tests made in the 5-ft Diameter Open Jet Tunnel of the Royal Aircraft Establishment and in the Compressed Air Tunnel of the National Physical Laboratory. These tests were conducted to find out the origin and order of the component drags of a hull and to determine in what way the hull drag differed from that of an equivalent body of revolution. Tests were made over Reynolds numbers ranging from the order of 2 to 60 x 106 in order to examine scale effect as far as possible, and a few tests were made to determine the possible effect of controlling boundary-layer transition. Otherwise all tests were made transition free. Subsequent to the systematic tests, tests were made on a specific hull form to investigate the form of step fairing designed for the Princess flying-boat, which form may be regarded as the best so far applied to hulls of contemporary fineness ratio and beam loading.
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