Vortex Characteristics of Pitching Double-Delta Wings

The increasing performance demands on advanced aircraft, including maneuvers at high angles of attack, has led to a need for the prediction of vehicle aerodynamics that are dominated by separated flow effects. For aircraft with highly swept wing leading edges, the challenge is to fully understand the flow physics behind the observed dramatic effects of vortex breakdown. An analysis has been performed to define the physical flow processes that could have generated the highly unusual rolling-moment characteristics measured on a 76-deg/40-deg double-delta wing, descrihing high-amplitude pitch oscillations at high angles of attack and nonzero angle of sideslip