Famous Aircraft
This high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft, designed under Kelly Johnson, relied on low radar signature and extreme speed rather than maneuverability or armament.
What is the SR-71 Blackbird?
For a circular orbit, this quantity must equal the square root of μ/r, where μ is the standard gravitational parameter.
What is orbital velocity?
This nondimensional quantity compares inertial forces to viscous forces and helps determine whether a flow is laminar or turbulent.
What is the Reynolds number?
This stability derivative, usually negative for a statically stable aircraft, represents the change in pitching moment coefficient with angle of attack.
What is Cmα?
In an ideal Brayton cycle, this compressor-related parameter primarily governs thermal efficiency when maximum cycle temperature is fixed.
What is the pressure ratio?
This Anglo-French supersonic transport was constrained commercially by sonic boom restrictions and high operating costs despite exceptional speed performance.
What is the Concorde?
This maneuver changes both the size and shape of an orbit using two impulsive burns and is classically used to move between coplanar circular orbits.
What is a Hohmann transfer?
This geometric line is drawn from the wing root to tip and is commonly referenced when defining twist, sweep, and angle of attack.
What is the chord line?
This angle is defined as the angle between the projection of the relative wind onto the body x-z plane and the body x-axis.
What is the angle of attack?
This quantity, often expressed in seconds for rockets, equals thrust divided by propellant weight flow rate.
What is specific impulse?
This swept-wing Boeing bomber, still in service after first flying in 1952, is the B-52 _____.
What is the Stratofortress?
In the rocket equation, this logarithmic relationship connects velocity change to initial and final mass.
What is the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation?
This point on an airfoil is the approximate location about which pitching moment is nearly constant with angle of attack in subsonic flow.
What is the aerodynamic center?
This angle, often denoted by β, measures lateral aerodynamic misalignment and plays a central role in directional stability.
What is the sideslip angle?
This jet engine component extracts work from the hot gas stream in order to drive the compressor and, in turbofans, often the fan as well.
What is the turbine?
This experimental X-plane became the first crewed aircraft to exceed Mach 6 under powered flight.
What is the X-15?
This Lagrange point, located roughly 1.5 million kilometers from Earth in the anti-sunward direction, is a favored location for observatories like JWST.
What is L2?
This dimensionless ratio, equal to span squared divided by wing area, strongly affects induced drag.
What is aspect ratio?
For a coordinated level turn, this quantity increases with bank angle according to n=1/cosϕ
What is the load factor?
This propulsion architecture bypasses a significant fraction of incoming air around the core, improving propulsive efficiency for subsonic transport aircraft.
What is a turbofan?
This aircraft was the first operational jet-powered fighter used by the Luftwaffe in World War II.
What is the Messerschmitt Me 262?
This perturbation causes the right ascension of the ascending node of low-Earth satellites to precess, enabling Sun-synchronous orbits.
What is the Earth’s J2 oblateness effect?
This structural design philosophy uses the aircraft skin to carry a significant portion of the loads rather than relying only on an internal frame.
What is semi-monocoque construction?
This condition occurs when the local flow over part of a wing first reaches Mach 1, often causing a sharp drag rise even though the aircraft is still flying below Mach 1 overall.
What is critical Mach number?
This matching condition in compressible nozzle flow occurs when the throat reaches Mach 1, causing mass flow rate to stop increasing despite further decreases in back pressure.
What is choked flow?