Visualizing the Flow

Neat video of the different NASA test over the years to visualize airflow over different test and production aircraft. Some cool shots of some cool aircraft.

......a look at the evolution of various ways NASA has observed flow visualization in aircraft structures over the years. Whether in the lab or flying high over the Mojave Desert, capturing these flow visuals is important for the development of future aeronautical concepts and designs.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Cool vid. I always thought watching computational fluid dynamics visualizations and such to be rather fascinating.

Heisenberg ( of uncertainty principle fame) was said to say on his death bed : "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first"

He actually finished his life working on turbulence as Heisenberg was convinced that Turbulence (and the Vortices it created) provided a macroscopic insight into the waves of probability that manifest themselves into reality itself.

Heisenberg got a big post death high 5 recently with the uncertainty principle being touted as the latest "best" explanation to some of the more spooky aspects of Quantum Physics ( action at a distance, double slit etc) with our inability to properly define all positions and velocities within quantum interactions as a likely candidate.

Although the vid shows the various methods in use, I do wonder if the second comment actually had any basis ( regarding computational modeling) as all the methods seem to be physical tests in the lab or wind tunnels/flight tests etc.

You would think that if you could build a computational simulation of the macroscopic effects of fluid interactions on material surfaces you would be able to build an entirely accurate "virtual" wind tunnel/virtual atmosphere and "upload" digitally proposed designs and fully test them there without having to even fabricate anything.

Although there are numerous projects to develop something entirely accurate- I am not aware of anything that could completely replace a physical test as we just dont have the computational power (in the None Mill Industrial Complex white world at least) to reproduce a "true" reality simulation ( due to uncertainty).

Nice video, I always liked watching how the air flowed around the different airframes. I actually looked for a screensaver of something similar awhile back but didn't find anything. At about the 4:25 mark did that B-52 just drop that 3/8 scale F-15 from the wing? The exclamation "Yeeee-Hawwww" comes to mind at that part, it sure does look like fun, but I'm not sure if there was a pilot in there.

a reply to: Sammamishman

Good find. There's some great wake turbulence visualizations in there. Most people don't understand how bad and deadly that can get sometimes.

a reply to: justwanttofly

I always liked the ones they did with a 757. Those were absolutely insane.

a reply to: Zaphod58

For some reason that airplane has some of the worst wake turbulence around. I don't know what it is but it's worse than most airplanes out there.

a reply to: justwanttofly

I'd be scared as hell to fly behind one, even at the required distances.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Back in the 90s my Uncle was a Dash 8 Captain at a regional airline. One day he took off behind a 757 at min separation. He was hand flying the airplane, and on the climb out the wake turbulence made the airplane bank 45 degrees left, 45 degrees right, then back to level. My Uncle had no control over any of this and the airplane wouldn't respond to any corrective action during the uncommanded banks.

a reply to: justwanttofly

A Cessna following a 757 was flipped over and slammed into the ground just before they changed the separation rules for the type.

Nice vid.