| Since the initial problems of flight were overcome the trend in aviation has been to larger and faster aircraft and with the advent of the supersonic transports the question arises "Is it possible to fly at hypersonic speeds." The first chapter outlines the basic properties a hypersonic vehicle will require and from this it is clear that design methods used in the past will not be of much use in the hypersonic regime. Nonweiler's design idea is then described and the work arising from this collected and reviewed. The conclusions drawn are that hypersonic flight is feasible and that the vehicle will have anhedral or drooping wings and will probably be slender, i.e. s/l = 1/3, The problem now is "How will such a wing perform at low speeds." In Chapter 2 the work done on slender wings is reviewed and is used as a starting point for the problem of how anhedral will affect the low speed properties of a slender delta wing. Two of the theories described in Chapter 2 are modified in Chapter 3 to the case of anhedral and the result's are compared with a series of tests run at a Reynold's number of 0.75 x 10.;6 on deltas with 0°,10°, 20° and 30° of anhedral. |
