Liberator wind tunnel tests

[Bruce Dennis]

Franek,
I think you will find that at that time the official body responsible for setting industry standards was National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, or NACA as it was known. NASA came much later. Most of NACA was dedicated to theoretical research, not producing an end product (like NASA).

It is very possible that Consolidated engineers carried out the tests using NACA facilities, or that Consolidated had their own wind tunnel. If that is what happened, Consolidated then would have had the results for their own purposes, and it is possible that NACA would not have been entitled to keep them: they were not the all-powerful organisation that NASA became.

I believe Consolidated used a lot of wind tunnel time on the B-36. The wing on that aircraft, and the earlier PBY, then the B-24, all had a very similar thick cross section.

Anyway, if the results were handed to NACA, they may have survived in the US National Archives.


Hope this helps,

Bruce

(Bill posted while I was writing this)