Articles with tag: "about"

(Note: figures do not appear in the summaries below)

  1. Introducing The Basics of Aircraft Icing

    "The least that you need to know"

    A Venn diagram with The Basics as a subset of Icing, and overlapping a little with Aerodynamics.
    Public domain image by Donald Cook

    Summary

    The Basics introduce core concepts and vocabulary of aircraft icing with images, "the least that you need to know".

    Discussion

    The Basics seek to facilitate initial learning about aircraft icing by:

    • focus on the needs of beginning learners
    • readily connecting to other resources for further learning
    • maximizing reuse
    • maximizing access

    Other sources may not do these well.

    Background

    One of the most-read posts that I have written was A Gentle Introduction to Aircraft Icing, so I think that there is interest in this topic.

    My learning experience

    I got a MSME degree from the University of Wisconsin Internal Combustion Engine lab. That prepared me well for some aspects of aircraft icing (heat transfer, thermodynamics, drop physics, computational fluid dynamics). However, that by itself was not enough.

    When I started in an Aircraft Systems design group, it …

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  3. The Blast from the Past Newsletter

    Published: Sat 30 September 2023
    Updated: Sat 18 May 2024

    tags: about
    newsletter

    “The greatest of all our problems is ice.”

    "The situation changed in the mid-1920s when the intrepid aviators of the U.S. Air Mail Service attempted to maintain scheduled day-and-night operations between New York and Chicago... As one of their pilots noted at the time about the hazards of the New York-Chicago route, “the greatest of all our problems is ice.”" 1

    Figure 2 from NACA-TN-313. Sketches of ice formation on wings and wires. (From notes and sketches on numerous flights.)
    From NACA-TN-313, 1929. 2

    Summary

    To subscribe to the newsletter: Subscribe! (via sender.net)

    Discussion

    I have an email newsletter with the latest posts and other site-related news, which you can receive regardless of the weather. Another advantage of subscribing to the newsletter is access to the secret* blog drafts that are in-work, before the public sees them, and access to the secret* newsletter archives. There is no cost to subscribe.

    [* Well, not so secret if one is acquainted with github.]

    Typical publishing sequence:

    • email newsletter, subscribers may …
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  4. Site Improvements

    Published: Sat 16 September 2023
    Updated: Sat 18 May 2024

    tags: about

    "I am surprised to find that there are so many details which have not been anticipated before ..."

    Reported in "Lew Rodert, Epistemological Liaison, and Thermal De-Icing at Ames". 1

    Mastodon logo, a stylized pachyderm with a letter M.

    Summary

    Since I started "Blast from the Past: NACA Icing Publications" 20 months ago, I have made over 100 posts. I have extensively revised some, and made improvements to all of them, so it is time to repost them.

    I will be posting links and short summaries to them in the original sequence on mastodon historians.social/@icinganalysis at a rate of three per week (about the pace that I originally posted them), so it will take almost a year to cycle through them. And I do plan on also creating new posts.

    If you want to read at you own pace, you can go to the Latest Posts tab at the top of the page for the complete list of …

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  5. Ideas for future posts

    Published: Thu 20 April 2023
    Updated: Sat 18 May 2024

    tags: about

    "... Before attacking what appeared to be a new icing problem we should study the icing work of the 1940's and 50's." 1

    Figure 15 of NACA-TN-2904. Water-drop-trajectory analog. Two investigators operate a large mechanical computer. One is seated turning a crank attached to a large cylinder labeled "Input Chart". The second operator turns another input chart crank. Another cylinder is labeled "Droplet Trajectories". There are many shafts and gears visible in the machine. Some machine parts are labeled with the differential equations of motion being solved.
    From NACA-TN-2904

    Summary

    I have made this blog up as I went along. I have a general plan to cover all 132 icing publications in the "Selected Bibilography of NACA-NASA Aircraft Icing Publications", but I also find other interesting, related items along the way.

    Future topic possibilities include:

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  6. A Gentle Introduction to Aircraft Icing

    "Icing is as close to pure witchcraft engineering as you can get."

    Thomas S. on LinkedIn.

    Figure 13 of NACA-TN-1598. Formation of ice on horizontal stabilizer. Average icing rate, 4 inches per hour; liquid-water content, 0.4 grams per cubic meter; drop size, 17 microns. (Painted stripes are 1 in. wide) Figure 13 of NACA-TN-1598. Formation of ice from flight on horizontal stabilizer. Average icing rate, 4 inches per hour; liquid-water content, 0.4 grams per cubic meter; drop size, 17 microns. (Painted stripes are 1 inch wide, indicating an ice thickness of about 2 inches.)

    Summary

    This website was written with people in mind (engineers, aerodynamicists) who already know something about aircraft and aircraft icing.

    To make it a little more understandable to others, I summarize here the assumed common knowledge, with a few of the key technical terms.

    Discussion

    Airplanes require lift from the wings in order to fly. This lift is produced due to details of the air flowing over the well-shaped wing.

    Ice may form on airplanes in flight in certain weather conditions. The ice changes the shape of the wing …

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  7. Site Navigation and Suggested Reading Order

    Published: Thu 21 July 2022
    Updated: Sat 18 May 2024

    tags: about

    "There is no order in the world around us, we must adapt ourselves to the requirements of chaos instead."

    Attributed to Kurt Vonnegut. For some more information about Kurt and his brother Bernard, see Supercooled Clouds.

    Several people using a library. Many are seated at tables reading books. There are book shelves, file cabinets for index cards, and a microfische reader.
    NACA Cleveland library, circa 1945.

    Summary

    There are over 100 articles on this website. Here is a guide to get to what you are interested in.

    NACA-era icing publication reviews *

    (* Well, mostly, a few post-NACA era ones are mixed in.)

    This is the main focus of the blog, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics publications on aircraft icing, 1915 to 1958.

    There are 132 publications in The Historical Selected Bibliography of NACA-NASA Icing Publications . (Not all of them have been reviewed yet.)

    This blog was written in "threads" or themes on topics. Threads will have links to several articles. It is suggested, but not required, to read the articles in the order below.

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  8. A Brief Digression on Unit Systems

    "I'm burning through the sky, yeah. Two hundred degrees, that's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit. I'm travelling at the speed of light."

    from Queen, "Don't Stop Me Now".

    The interior of a modified B-29 bomber used to determine what conditions cause ice to form on wings and aircraft surfaces. An investigator wearing headphones, an oxygen mask, a fur-lined leather jacket, and stylish patterned pants is seated in front of scale. There are also several dial gauges. Standard weights and other measurements in use. 1

    Summary

    The unit system used herein is detailed.

    Preferred units (primary SI units):

        mass: kg
    force: N
    length: m
    tk: temperature, K
    time: seconds, s
    p: air static pressure, Pa (N/m^2)
    u: free-stream air speed, m/s
    altitude: pressure altitude, m
    energy: J or N-m

    Icing specific, entrenched exceptions:

        d_drop: water drop diameter, micrometer (1e-6 m)
    lwc: liquid water content, g/m^3

    The NACA publications systems of units

    The units in the NACA publications vaguely follow "US Customary" units, although there are often exceptions:

        mass: g, kg, lbm, slug
    force: N, lbf
    length: micron, inch, foot, mile, nautical mile
    temperature: F, R
    time: s, hour
    air static pressure, lbf/in …
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