Aerodynamic Scaling of General Aviation Airfoil for Low Reynolds Number Application

Meaningful scaled model flight research requires models that are dynamically and aerodynamically scaled. While dynamic scaling assures that the flight dynamics scale (such as turn rates etc.), aerodynamic scaling assures that the scaled airplane, especially the airfoil, has the same aerodynamic properties (such as aerodynamic coefficients, derivatives, stall behavior etc.) as the full size airplane or airfoil despite the change in Reynolds number associated with the change in length scales, air speeds, and air properties. The present study is concerned with the Aeromot 200S Super Ximango motor glider for which a dynamically scaled 1:5 scale model was built. We investigated aerodynamic scaling for a two-dimensional section of its wing which has a modified NACA 643-618 geometry. For this airfoil, wind tunnel data and airfoil analysis code predictions were found to change noticeably when going from the full size cruise to the model cruise conditions. We investigated two different approaches for obtaining aerodynamic similarity between the 1:5 scale and the full size airfoil at cruise conditions: i) Forced transition with a trip wire and ii) modifying the airfoil geometry.