Ground Effect on the Take-off and Landing of Airplanes
This NASA technical report from 1935, issued by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, presents wind-tunnel measurements of how the ground changes airplane lift and drag during take-off and landing. Its charts plot lift-to-drag ratio, lift coefficient and drag coefficient against angle of attack, with some curves showing a flat plate and a reflection plane standing in for the ground. A designer might take from them the clean graph styling of dense overlaid curves, with circle, cross and plus markers and dashed and dotted line variants set on a squared grid.
