davebender
1st Lieutenant
I'm no expert in this area but found the web page interesting.
Laminar Flow Airfoil
Another interesting bit from the same web site.
Wing Dihedral
Laminar Flow Airfoil
The P-51 Mustang was the first aircraft intentionally designed to use laminar flow airfoils. However, wartime NACA research data shows that Mustangs were not manufactured with a sufficient degree of surface quality to maintain much laminar flow on the wing. The RAF found that the Bell P-63, despite being designed with laminar airfoils, also was not manufactured with sufficient surface quality to have much laminar flow.
The B-24 bomber's "Davis" airfoil was also a laminar flow airfoil, which predates the Mustang's. However, the designers of the B-24 only knew that their airfoil had very low drag in the wind tunnel. They did not know that it was a laminar flow airfoil.
The boundary layer concept is credited to the great German aerodynamicist, Ludwig Prandtl. Prandtl hypothesized and proved the existence of the boundary layer long before the Mustang was a gleam in anyone's eye.
Another interesting bit from the same web site.
Wing Dihedral
Highly maneuverable fighter planes have no dihedral and some fighter aircraft have the wing tips lower than the roots, giving the aircraft a high roll rate. A negative dihedral angle is called anhedral. The AV-8B Harrier II above has a negative dihedral or anhedral