ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HAMPTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
IT'S CALLED LAMINAR FLOW CONTROL, and it could save consumers billions of dollars on air travel. That may be the problem.
NASA Langley engineers called it the ``holy grail'' of aerodynamics. And now that they've proven it works, they say it could save airlines and the flying public billions of dollars in fuel costs.
But the airplane manufacturers that helped achieve this technological breakthrough have no plans to use it. Its developers contend that without another energy crisis or pressure from their European competitors, American airplane companies are content to leave it on a shelf.
The breakthrough is called ``laminar flow control,'' the smooth flow of air over a plane's wings. The smoother the flow, the less fuel an airplane uses, up to 10 percent less, said Jeffrey Lavell, project manager for supersonic laminar flow experiments at NASA Langley Research Center.
``The whole idea for doing this is to make an airplane fly more efficiently,'' Lavell said.
Over the past 20 years, NASA and industry engineers have shown that laminar flow control is possible using a vacuum system that sucks air through tiny holes in the surface of a plane's wings.
But airplane companies like Boeing and McDonnell Douglas haven't taken steps to use laminar flow technology in their airplanes. Boeing has decided not to use it because it may be too expensive and may cause problems in manufacturing and maintenance, said spokeswoman Mary Jean Olsen.
The engineers who helped develop that technology say the manufacturers are simply conservative by nature, unwilling to try something new if they don't have to - even something that could save billions for their customers.
The quest for laminar flow began at Langley in the 1920s. In wind tunnels, engineers saw that the air passing over a wing remains smooth for a few inches before disintegrating into turbulent swirls and eddies that put drag on a plane in flight.
In the 1940s, engineers thought they could prevent those swirls and eddies by sucking a small amount of air into the wing, through tiny holes. But the tiniest holes they could cut 50 years ago weren't tiny enough and actually caused more turbulence, Lavell said.
Then laser cutting tools made truly tiny holes possible starting in the 1970s. The wing surfaces used in NASA Langley's laminar flow experiments contain thousands of holes per square inch, said Mike Fischer, the principal investigator.
``It looks solid until you hold it up to the light,'' Fischer said.
The energy crisis of the 1970s prompted airplane companies to begin experimenting with laminar flow, and by the late 1980s the Air Force, NASA Langley and Boeing had successfully used a laminar flow system on a Boeing 757.
The final technological barrier to laminar flow was overcome last year, when a group led by NASA achieved extensive laminar flow on an F-16 fighter plane at some 1,400 mph.
The engineers who developed laminar flow control believe one of two things will have to happen before U.S. airplane manufacturers pursue their technology.
The first is another energy crisis. If something like the Arab oil embargo happens again, the fuel savings from laminar flow will become more appealing, said Lavell.
Or, American companies could also be moved to adopt laminar flow technology to keep up with their main overseas competitor, Airbus Industries.
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB