NACA-RM-L55L19

Abstract

INTRODUCTION <br>Many of the trends in the design of present-day fighter aircraft have increased the problems of providing adequate lateral and directional stability and of properly estimating tail loads. This is particularly so since the usual operating range of such aircraft now includes subsonic, transonic, and supersonic flight and an extended angle-of-attack range. Reference &#189; discusses in detail some of these stability problems while reference 2 considers the problem of tail-loads estimation. Both of these references point to the necessity, in the present state of design ability, of adequate wind-tunnel studies in the development of specific designs. <br>Therefore, when a supersonic-fighter design was investigated in the Langley 16-foot tunnel recently, the test program included studies of lateral and directional stability and of vertical-tail loads. This paper presents the results of this part of the investigation. Previously reported are the longitudinal stability and performance data obtained in the same program (reference 3, 4,, and 5). Data are presented in this report for mach numbers from 0.80 to 1.03, angles of attack from 0&#186; to 15&#176; and sideslip angles generally to 5&#176;