Development and usage of a small-scale V/STOL ground effects simulator

Abstract

A small scale ground effects simulator for V/STOL aircraft design testing has been built by an American university in association with NASA-AMES. The simulator is used to measure pressures and forces on a wide variety of V/STOL model configurations including generic models which do not represent any particular aircraft. The modes of operation and instrumentation of the simulator are described, and a survey of some recent test results are presented. The basic simulator consists of two parts, an aluminum disk ground plane and a model support. Instrumentation consists of pressure transducers, scanivalves, thermocouples and hot wire anemometers. Test results are presented for single and twin nozzle configurations; a generic V/STOL design, and the Harrier and Grumman 698 combat aircraft models. A black and white photograph of the simulator is provided.