Lockheed laminar-flow control systems development and applications

Progress is summarized from 1974 to the present in the practical application of laminar-flow control (LFC) to subsonic transport aircraft. Those efforts included preliminary design system studies of commercial and military transports and experimental investigations leading to the development of the leading-edge flight test article installed on the NASA JetStar flight test aircraft. The benefits of LFC on drag, fuel efficiency, lift-to-drag ratio, and operating costs are compared with those for turbulent flow aircraft. The current activities in the NASA Industry Laminar-Flow Enabling Technologies Development contract include summaries of activities in the Task 1 development of a slotted-surface structural concept using advanced aluminum materials and the Task 2 preliminary conceptual design study of global-range military hybrid laminar flow control (HLFC) to obtain data at high Reynolds numbers and at Mach numbers representative of long-range subsonic transport aircraft operation.