Coffin Corner (aerodynamics)
Coffin corner (also known as the aerodynamic ceiling or Q corner) is the region of flight where a fast but subsonic fixed-wing aircraft's stall speed is near the critical Mach number, making it very difficult to keep an airplane in stable flight. Because the stall speed is the minimum speed required to maintain level flight, any reduction in speed will cause the airplane to stall and lose altitude. Because the critical Mach number is the maximum speed at which air can travel over the wings without losing lift due to flow separation and shock waves, any increase in speed will cause the airplane to lose lift, or to pitch heavily nose-down, and lose altitude. The "corner" refers to the triangular shape at the top of a flight envelope chart where the stall speed and critical Mach number are within a few knots of each other at a given gross weight and G-force loading. The "coffin" refers to the possible death in these kinds of stalls. The speed where they meet is the ceiling of ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Altitude
Altitude is a distance measurement, usually in the vertical or "up" direction, between a reference datum (geodesy), datum and a point or object. The exact definition and reference datum varies according to the context (e.g., aviation, geometry, geographical survey, sport, or atmospheric pressure). Although the term ''altitude'' is commonly used to mean the height above sea level of a location, in geography the term elevation is often preferred for this usage. In aviation, altitude is typically measured relative to mean sea level or above ground level to ensure safe navigation and flight operations. In geometry and geographical surveys, altitude helps create accurate topographic maps and understand the terrain's elevation. For high-altitude trekking and sports, knowing and adapting to altitude is vital for performance and safety. Higher altitudes mean reduced oxygen levels, which can lead to altitude sickness if proper acclimatization measures are not taken. Vertical distance ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stall (flight)
In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack exceeds its critical value.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', p. 486. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. The critical angle of attack is typically about 15°, but it may vary significantly depending on the fluid, foil – including its shape, size, and finish – and Reynolds number. Stalls in fixed-wing aircraft are often experienced as a sudden reduction in lift. It may be caused either by the pilot increasing the wing's angle of attack or by a decrease in the critical angle of attack. The former may be due to slowing down (below stall speed), the latter by accretion of ice on the wings (especially if the ice is rough). A stall does not mean that the engine(s) have stopped working, or that the aircraft has stopped moving—the effect is the same even in an unpowered glider aircraft. Vectored thrust in aircraft is used to maintain alti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Load Factor (aeronautics)
In aeronautics, the load factor is the ratio of the Lift (force), lift of an aircraft to its weightHurt, page 37 and represents a global measure of the stress (mechanics), stress ("load") to which the structure of the aircraft is subjected: : n = \frac, where : n is the load factor, : L is the lift : W is the weight. Since the load factor is the ratio of two forces, it is dimensionless. However, its units are traditionally referred to as g, because of the relation between load factor and apparent acceleration of gravity felt on board the aircraft. A load factor of one, or 1 g, represents conditions in straight and level flight, where the lift is equal to the weight. Load factors greater or less than one (or even negative) are the result of maneuvers or wind gusts. Load factor and g The fact that the load factor is commonly expressed in ''g'' units does not mean that it is dimensionally the same as the Earth's gravity, acceleration of gravity, also indicated with ''g''. The lo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mach Tuck
Mach tuck is an aerodynamic effect whereby the nose of an aircraft tends to Pitch (flight), pitch downward as the airflow around the wing reaches supersonic speeds. This diving tendency is also known as tuck under. The aircraft will first experience this effect at significantly below Mach number, Mach 1. Causes Mach tuck is usually caused by two things: a rearward movement of the center of pressure (fluid mechanics), centre of pressure of the wing, and a decrease in wing downwash velocity at the tailplane, both of which cause a nose down pitching moment. For a particular aircraft design only one of these may be significant in causing a tendency to for example, a delta-winged aircraft with no foreplane or tailplane in the first case, and the Lockheed P-38 in the second case. Alternatively, a particular design may have no significant tendency, such as the Fokker F28 Fellowship. As an aerofoil generating lift moves through the air, the air flowing over the top surface accelerates t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Moment (physics)
A moment is a mathematical expression involving the product of a distance and a physical quantity such as a force or electric charge. Moments are usually defined with respect to a fixed reference point and refer to physical quantities located some distance from the reference point. For example, the moment of force, often called torque, is the product of a force on an object and the distance from the reference point to the object. In principle, any physical quantity can be multiplied by a distance to produce a moment. Commonly used quantities include forces, masses, and electric charge distributions; a list of examples is provided later. Elaboration In its most basic form, a moment is the product of the distance to a point, raised to a power, and a physical quantity (such as force or electrical charge) at that point: : \mu_n = r^n\,Q, where Q is the physical quantity such as a force applied at a point, or a point charge, or a point mass, etc. If the quantity is not concen ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Center Of Pressure (fluid Mechanics)
In fluid mechanics, the center of pressure is the point on a body where a single force acting at that point can represent the total effect of the pressure field acting on the body. The total force vector acting at the center of pressure is the surface integral of the pressure vector field across the surface of the body. The resultant force and center of pressure location produce an equivalent force and moment on the body as the original pressure field. Pressure fields occur in both static and dynamic fluid mechanics. Specification of the center of pressure, the reference point from which the center of pressure is referenced, and the associated force vector allows the moment generated about any point to be computed by a translation from the reference point to the desired new point. It is common for the center of pressure to be located on the body, but in fluid flows it is possible for the pressure field to exert a moment on the body of such magnitude that the center of press ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Drag Divergence Mach Number
The drag-divergence Mach number (not to be confused with critical Mach number) is the Mach number at which the aerodynamic drag on an airfoil or airframe begins to increase rapidly as the Mach number continues to increase. This increase can cause the drag coefficient to rise to more than ten times its low-speed value. The value of the drag-divergence Mach number is typically greater than 0.6; therefore it is a transonic effect. The drag-divergence Mach number is usually close to, and always greater than, the critical Mach number. Generally, the drag coefficient peaks at Mach 1.0 and begins to decrease again after the transition into the supersonic regime above approximately Mach 1.2. The large increase in drag is caused by the formation of a shock wave on the upper surface of the airfoil, which can induce flow separation and adverse pressure gradients on the aft portion of the wing. This effect requires that aircraft intended to fly at supersonic speeds have a large amount of t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Shock Waves
In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a medium, but is characterized by an abrupt, nearly discontinuous, change in pressure, temperature, and density of the medium. For the purpose of comparison, in supersonic flows, additional increased expansion may be achieved through an expansion fan, also known as a Prandtl–Meyer expansion fan. The accompanying expansion wave may approach and eventually collide and recombine with the shock wave, creating a process of destructive interference. The sonic boom associated with the passage of a supersonic aircraft is a type of sound wave produced by constructive interference. Unlike solitons (another kind of nonlinear wave), the energy and speed of a shock wave alone dissipates relatively quickly with distance. When a shock wave passes throug ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mach Number
The Mach number (M or Ma), often only Mach, (; ) is a dimensionless quantity in fluid dynamics representing the ratio of flow velocity past a boundary to the local speed of sound. It is named after the Austrian physicist and philosopher Ernst Mach. \mathrm = \frac, where: * is the local Mach number, * is the local flow velocity with respect to the boundaries (either internal, such as an object immersed in the flow, or external, like a channel), and * is the speed of sound in the medium, which in air varies with the square root of the thermodynamic temperature. By definition, at Mach1, the local flow velocity is equal to the speed of sound. At Mach0.65, is 65% of the speed of sound (subsonic), and, at Mach1.35, is 35% faster than the speed of sound (supersonic). The local speed of sound, and hence the Mach number, depends on the temperature of the surrounding gas. The Mach number is primarily used to determine the approximation with which a flow can be treated as an i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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International Standard Atmosphere
The International Standard Atmosphere (ISA) is a static atmospheric model of how the pressure, temperature, density, and viscosity of the Earth's atmosphere change over a wide range of altitudes or elevations. It has been established to provide a common reference for temperature and pressure and consists of tables of values at various altitudes, plus some formulas by which those values were derived. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) publishes the ISA as an international standard, ISO 2533:1975.International Organization for Standardization, Standard Atmosphere', ISO 2533:1975, 1975. Other standards organizations, such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the United States Government, publish extensions or subsets of the same atmospheric model under their own standards-making authority. Description The ISA mathematical model divides the atmosphere into layers with an assumed linear distribution of absolute temperature ''T'' against ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tropopause
The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary that demarcates the lowest two layers of the atmosphere of Earth – the troposphere and stratosphere – which occurs approximately above the equatorial regions, and approximately above the polar regions. Definition Rising from the planetary surface of the Earth, the tropopause is the atmospheric level where the air ceases to become cool with increased altitude and becomes dry, devoid of water vapor. The tropopause is the boundary that demarcates the troposphere below from the stratosphere above, and is part of the atmosphere where there occurs an abrupt change in the environmental lapse rate (ELR) of temperature, from a positive rate (of decrease) in the troposphere to a negative rate in the stratosphere. The tropopause is defined as the lowest level at which the lapse rate decreases to 2°C/km or less, provided that the average lapse-rate, between that level and all other higher levels within 2.0 km does not exceed 2°C/km. The trop ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |