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Destination Tomorrow - DT2 - Supersonic Flight
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NASA Destination Tomorrow Segment exploring the soundbarrier and how the theory of area rule enabled efficient, supersonic flight to be possible.
Today, many planes break the sound barrier with relative ease, but it wasn't too many
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years ago that the sound barrier was just that, a seemingly impenetrable, invisible
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wall.
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In fact, many aerodynamicists thought that the sound barrier may never be broken by man
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until one man named Richard Whitcomb developed a theory called area rule that enabled efficient
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supersonic flight to become a reality.
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Before October of 1947, attempts to break the sound barrier usually ended in disaster.
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That was until Chuck Yeager and the X-1 flew through the sound barrier on October 14, 1947.
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The sound barrier had finally been broken.
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But there it was what I call a brute force approach in the sense that your rocket just
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rammed that airplane through the speed of sound, but the drag was so high that they
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used up all the fuel in just about five minutes.
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So it was not practical supersonic flight, but it did accomplish breaking of the barrier.
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There needed to be a more efficient way to break the speed of sound.
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Dick Whitcomb set out to find a way.
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Whitcomb found that when a plane reached near supersonic speeds, the drag around the wings
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would increase by as much as a factor of five.
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He saw that much like a bullet, the fuselage was extremely aerodynamic without the wings,
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and when the wings were added, an aerodynamic bump was causing incredible amounts of drag
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that was slowing the plane down.
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It became obvious to him that he had to find a way to take the bump out of the equation.
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Whitcomb's tests showed that when he added the entire area of wings and fuselage together,
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the drag or aerodynamic bump was exactly the same as the drag of a fuselage with wings.
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He worked tirelessly to find a solution when one day as he was thinking about the problem,
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the solution hit him like a bolt of lightning.
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He must indent or pinch in the waste of the fuselage.
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This new shape of the fuselage would closely resemble the shape of a Coke bottle.
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Whitcomb was astonished to find that by changing the shape of the fuselage, he took the bump
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out of the equation and allowed the plane to become as aerodynamically smooth as a fuselage
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without wings.
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This very simple fix came to be known as the area rule.
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I had the idea, then we built some models to try and demonstrate it.
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We built airplanes with the Coke bottle shaped fuselages, and lo and behold, the drag of
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the wing just disappeared.
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Now there was when I was really thrilled.
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That was far, that was a year or two before anything flew, but there the wind tunnel showed
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that it just, it worked perfectly.
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It was not some oddball theory.
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It was a practical means of reducing drag.
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When the area rule concept was flight tested on the newly converted F-102 fighter, the
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plane soared through the sound barrier with ease.
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Whitcomb's discovery revolutionized the way that supersonic fighters, bombers, and transports
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were built from the 1950s through today.
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In fact, the area rule concept is still used on many modern planes, including the B-1 bomber
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and the Boeing 747.
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Dick Whitcomb's intuition and daring led to a revolution in air technology that has forever
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changed the history of flight.
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For his effort in developing the area rule concept, Dr. Whitcomb won the prestigious
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Collier Trophy, which is awarded annually for great achievement in aeronautics and astronautics
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in America.
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Coming up, we'll see how NASA researchers are working on a morphing technology that
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will allow future aircraft to fly like birds.
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But first, did you know that Jacqueline Cochran was the first woman to break the sound barrier?
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Cochran broke the barrier May 18, 1953, in an F-86 Sabre jet.
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At the time of her death in 1980, she held more speed, altitude, and distance records
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than any other pilot, man or woman, in history.
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- Idioma/s:
- Niveles educativos:
- ▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
- Nivel Intermedio
- Autor/es:
- NASA LaRC Office of Education
- Subido por:
- EducaMadrid
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
- Visualizaciones:
- 625
- Fecha:
- 28 de mayo de 2007 - 17:04
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Enlace Relacionado:
- NASAs center for distance learning
- Duración:
- 04′ 06″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
- Resolución:
- 480x360 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 23.86 MBytes
