Lift-to-drag Ratio - Supersonic/hypersonic Lift To Drag Ratios

Supersonic/hypersonic Lift To Drag Ratios

At very high speeds, lift to drag ratios tend to be lower. Concorde had a lift/drag ratio of around 7 at Mach 2, whereas a 747 is around 17 at about mach 0.85.

Dietrich Küchemann developed an empirical relationship for predicting L/D ratio for high Mach:

where M is the Mach number. Windtunnel tests have shown this to be roughly accurate.

Read more about this topic:  Lift-to-drag Ratio

Famous quotes containing the words lift, drag and/or ratios:

    For every man that Bolingbroke hath pressed
    To lift shrewd steel against our golden crown,
    God for his Richard hath in heavenly pay
    A glorious angel. Then if angels fight,
    Weak men must fall; for heaven still guards the right.
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

    Our own theological Church, as we know, has scorned and vilified the body till it has seemed almost a reproach and a shame to have one, yet at the same time has credited it with power to drag the soul to perdition.
    Eliza Farnham (1815–1864)

    Typography is not only a technology but is in itself a natural resource or staple, like cotton or timber or radio; and, like any staple, it shapes not only private sense ratios but also patterns of communal interdependence.
    Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)