Pneumatically Pumped Up

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation 4 Comments

Robert J. Englar is Principal Research Engineer at the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Georgia Tech Research Institute in the Aerospace & Acoustics Technology Branch. Responsible for research project direction and development of advanced technologies in aerodynamics, he added a different type of discipline to those presented at the fifth Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium last April in Santa Rosa, California. His research combines attempts to achieve low noise, high lift and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capabilities while applying pneumatic power to the equation. Not to be confused with inflatable rafts, pneumatic, in this case, refers to the careful routing of high-pressure airstreams over very different airfoil and high-lift device surfaces, and has led to measured coefficients of lift in the 8.5 to 9.0 range. By comparison, a conventional STOL craft may generate a CL of 3.3 (Zenith Air 801) and the Custer Channel Wing claimed, with its propeller blast channeled through a semi-circular wing (hence the name), an infinite CL.  …