Correlation of Forebody Pressures and Aircraft Yawing Moments on the X-29A Aircraft at High Angles of Attack

In-flight pressure distributions at four fuselage stations on the forebody of the X-29A aircraft have been reported at angles of attack from 15 to 66° and at Mach numbers from 0.22 to 0.60. At angles of attack of 20° and higher, vortices shed from the nose strake caused suction peaks in the pressure distributions that generally increased in magnitude with angle of attack. Above 30° -angle of attack, the fore body pressure distributions became asymmetrical at the most forward station, while they remained nearly symmetrical until 50- to 55°-angle of attack for the aft stations. Between 59- to 66°-angle of attack, the asymmetry of the pressure distributions changed direction. Yawing moments for the forebody alone were obtained by integrating the forebody pressure distributions. At 45°-angle of attack, the aircraft yaws to the right and at 50° and higher, the aircraft yaws to the left. The fore body yawing moments correlated well with the aircraft left yawing moment at an angle of attack of 50° or higher. At a 45°-angle of attack, the forebody yawing moments did not correlate well with the aircraft yawing moment, but it is suggested that this was due to asymmetric pressures on the cockpit region of the fuselage which was not instrumented. The forebody was also shown to provide a positive component of directional stability of the aircraft at angles of attack of 25° or higher. A Mach number effect was noted at angles of attack of 30° or higher at the station where the nose strake was present. At this station, the suction peaks in the pressure distributions at the highest Mach number were reduced and much more symmetrical as compared to the lower Mach number pressure distributions.