Preliminary Report on Laminar-Flow Airfoils and New Methods Adopted for Airfoil and Boundary-Layer Investigations
This 1939 NASA technical report, a preliminary study of laminar-flow airfoils and boundary-layer methods, was produced by NACA researchers for aeronautical engineers and wind-tunnel workers. Its pictures are plain engineering line graphs: airfoil cross-section outlines drawn above chord-wise pressure-coefficient curves plotted from 0 to 100 percent chord, with dashed and solid traces, handwritten labels and grid lines. A designer could take from them the stark, minimal visual language of technical diagrams, with curves that rise sharply near the leading edge and taper toward the trailing edge.
