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About Paul Soderman
Expertise
Aeronautics, Fluid Mechanics, Aeroacoustics, Noise Control, Muffler Design, Wind Tunnel Research.... I know nothing about India - do not ask about schools, jobs, application requirements, career choices, etc. for India. Please, no text message verbiage; I prefer full words in full sentences. Thanks.

Experience
38 years as research engineer at NASA

Publications
AIAA, NASA

Education/Credentials
B.S. and M.S. Aeronautical Engineering - U. of Washington Graduate work Standford U.

Awards and Honors
AIAA Associate Fellow (American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics)

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Aeronautical Engineering - Aeronautics

Expert: Paul Soderman - 9/16/2009

Question
Why is it I can not find the glide ratio of a piper PA 18 super club in a dead stick configuration ?
The closest I can find is 7 to 1 or 10 to 1 .

Answer
I don't know. Maybe it has never been in a wind tunnel, or maybe Piper never released the flight test data. If you could find drag data for a similar aircraft you could get pretty close because all you need is lift-to-drag ratio and lift is almost equal to weight in a shallow glide. This thing has a light wing loading so it should glide pretty well. Check out the following for converting L/D to glide ratio: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/ldrat.html. If you have access to NASA and NACA reports you might be able to find drag or L/D data for a similar configuration. Some libraries such as in engineering schools have NASA reports. NASA also has some reports on line.

Paul

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