Atwood did not quantify beyond simply stating "all the cooling drag" when other sources put it at 90% or less.
He also made no distinction between "cooling drag" and "radiator drag"......or whether he was referencing the drag of the ducting...........or whether he addressed the addition to the frontal area of the airplane.
It is his article that is parroted over and over across the entire internet whenever meredith effect is mentioned and I don't believe the article shows enough data points to be worthy of said parroting.
And while we're at it.............no, the racing P51s are not adding "boundary layer bumps" but rather reshaping the profile of the wing.
Two points and then a question.
First I disagree Atwood's comments and remarked that he must not know what his team wrote in the P-51D-5-NA Performance Calculations per NA-8449 in the Drag Discussion from page 19 through 26. You don't either because you missed the point that I quoted directly from the report and so noted them by reference and quotes.
Second point - I knew Bruce Boland and maintained contact with him over the years until he left us. If you recognize the name, you should stop and pause and ask yourself "Do I REALLY know what I am talking about" relative to the experiment of introducing a BL trip up front on the airfoil for improvement in the .67-.77M range? I won't say whether the practice is continuing. As far as I know it was used on only one racing Mustang, but could have been more.
Question, repeated. What are Your academic and industry experience credentials - which you clearly think are far superior to mine that you feel comfortable making snide remarks about my background or 'belief' systems relative to Aerodynamics?
You cleverly avoided answering the question, you haven't demonstrated any real technical expertise to analyze Drag parameter to build performance estimates, and you casually threw off a vague comment about aero background. Blowhard or just a nasty cynic?
