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Dr. Mark Drela

PostPosted: Thu Dec 28, 2017 3:38 pm
by JoeF
Dr. Mark Drela
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What from Dr. Mark Drela may affect hang gliding?

Re: Dr. Mark Drela

PostPosted: Sun Dec 31, 2017 3:22 pm
by KaiMartin
JoeF wrote:Dr. Mark Drela
What from Dr. Mark Drela may affect hang gliding?


Well, together with Harold Youngren he wrote the simulation code "xfoil" while working at MIT for the human powered aircraft Daedalus . Xfoil can calculate the properties of (almost) arbitrary airfoils.
http://web.mit.edu/drela/Public/web/xfoil/
The code was released to the public under GPL (Gnu Public Licence). IIRC, this was in 2000. This allowed the creators of xflr5 to convert xfoil to C and integrate it into a simulation suite for complete gliders. If I were to construct a hang glider from scratch, I'd use this program to make sure the glider has a chance to actually fly as intended.

---<)kaimartin(>---