The effect of over-the-wing nacelles on wing-body aerodynamics

An investigation was conducted in the Langley 16-foot transonic tunnel to further study benefits in climb and cruise performance due to blowing the jet over the wing for a transport-type wing-body configuration. In this investigation a wing-body model/powered-nacelle test rig combination was tested at Mach numbers of 0.5 and 0.8 at angles of attack from -2 to 4 deg and jet total-pressure ratios from jet off to 3 or 4 (depending on Mach number) for a variety of nacelle locations relative to the wing. Results from this investigation show that positioning of the nacelles can have very large effects on the wing-body drag (nacelles were nonmetric). Some positions yielded much higher drag than the baseline wing-body while others yielded drag which was somewhat lower than the baseline.