Technical Paper
Improving AC-130H Gunship Performance Through Drag Reduction - A Wind Tunnel and Flight Test Partnership
1999-10-19
1999-01-5506
Approximately 120 hours of wind tunnel testing were accomplished to determine the drag contributions of various external protuberances on the AC-130H Gunship and to recommend modifications to achieve optimal drag reduction potential. Also, the operational impact of the recommended configuration was quantified using a performance modeling code. The overall objective of this effort was to establish a solid foundation via experimental and computational ground efforts to support flight test of drag reduction modifications to an aircraft. Thirteen basic AC-130H protuberances were evaluated to determine their incremental drag. A recommended reduced-drag configuration was developed which provided a drag reduction potential of 58.2 counts.
