AboutPaul 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)
Question 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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QUESTION: Thank you Paul .Do you happen to know a similar configuration or
do you know the wing load per sq.ft. on the PA 18?
Answer According to http://www.airliners.net/aircraft-data/stats.main?id=299, the PA 18-95 has a max takeoff weight of 910 lbs and the PA 18-150 has a max takeoff weight of 1750 lbs. The wing area of each is 178.5 ft^2. So the wing loadings of the two versions are 5.1 lb/ft^2 and 9.8 lb/ft^2, respectively. That of course goes down as fuel is burned. I don't know of a similar aircraft that has been documented without doing a literature search, which I will leave to you.
Paul
