5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel
Langley engineers built this scale model of the 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel to confirm its performance before erecting the full-sized tunnel.
Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris wrote in NACA TR 387: ""The vertical open-throat wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ... was built mainly for studying the spinning characteristics of airplane models, but may be used as well for the usual types of wind-tunnel tests. A special spinning balance is being developed to measure the desired forces and moments with the model simulating the actual spin of an airplane. Satisfactory air flow has been attained with a velocity that is uniform over the jet to within ? 0.5 per cent. The turbulence present in the tunnel has been compared with that of several other tunnels by means of the results of sphere drag tests and was found to average well with the values of those tunnels. Included also in the report are comparisons of results of stable autorotation and of rolling-moment tests obtained both in the vertical tunnel and in the old horizontal 5-foot atmospheric tunnel."" The design of a vertical tunnel having a 5-foot diameter jet was accordingly started by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1928. Actual construction of the new tunnel was completed in 1930, and the calibration tests were then made.""
Credit: NASA
Image Number: L-3957
Date: September 17, 1930
5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel
Langley engineers built this scale model of the 5-Foot Vertical Wind Tunnel to confirm its performance before erecting the full-sized tunnel.
Carl Wenzinger and Thomas Harris wrote in NACA TR 387: ""The vertical open-throat wind tunnel of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics ... was built mainly for studying the spinning characteristics of airplane models, but may be used as well for the usual types of wind-tunnel tests. A special spinning balance is being developed to measure the desired forces and moments with the model simulating the actual spin of an airplane. Satisfactory air flow has been attained with a velocity that is uniform over the jet to within ? 0.5 per cent. The turbulence present in the tunnel has been compared with that of several other tunnels by means of the results of sphere drag tests and was found to average well with the values of those tunnels. Included also in the report are comparisons of results of stable autorotation and of rolling-moment tests obtained both in the vertical tunnel and in the old horizontal 5-foot atmospheric tunnel."" The design of a vertical tunnel having a 5-foot diameter jet was accordingly started by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1928. Actual construction of the new tunnel was completed in 1930, and the calibration tests were then made.""
Credit: NASA
Image Number: L-3957
Date: September 17, 1930