Re: Eliminating wave drag from wings

--- Henry Spencer <[email protected]> wrote:
> If it has a sharp leading edge, and its
> undersurface is
> parallel to the airstream, you get very nearly no
> shock wave generated
> below it.  (There is one above it -- the thing has
> to have some thickness
> somewhere, so *both* surfaces can't be parallel to
> the air! -- but that
> one's heading back up toward the wing where it can
> be dealt with.)  This
> probably won't be perfect, but the stream generator
> can be a relatively 
> small object which doesn't generate a big shock
> wave.

Hmm.  So, could one then just make a flat-bottomed
panel, carefully aligned with the incoming airflow,
with a top geometry that doesn't transmit shock waves
very well, and carry that underneath the wing?  (Or
maybe have a flat-bottomed wing, likewise aligned,
with the engines in or above the wing so as not to
disrupt the bottom.)

Alternately, couldn't one have both the top and bottom
of the wing be aligned-parallel as above, with the
leading edge between them shaped to funnel incoming
air towards engines fully enclosed by the wings?
Granted, those would be pretty thick wings, even if
this funnelling were enough to remove any need for
compressors within the engines, and that might be what
kills this idea.