The role of wind tunnels in predicting sounding rocket aerodynamics

The aerodynamic characteristics of sounding rockets, in some cases, may be adequately determined by various estimating procedures, however, there are cases where these procedures fail and wind tunnel studies become necessary. The present paper deals with configurations of the latter type, for which the problems of concern include mismatched diameters between stages, mutual fin interference effects, fin alignment and orientation, body deflections between stages, boundary layer growth, and stability changes that occur as stages are dropped. Some characteristics related to separated flow, interference flow fields, and Reynolds number are examined.