I read through all of these posts. But something seems to be
missing. How do you determine that the optimal ,AOA is 7 deg (or
what ever number you choose)? It seems to me that greatest
efficiency occurs where L/D is maximized. I think that this is
rather complicated. You need to take into account the drag polar of
the propeller, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_Polar for an
explanation of this. In addition, I seem to remember that propeller
efficiency is defined as the ratio of thrust to the shaft input
power. This is obviously going to vary throughout the flight as
torque burns off and climb angle decreases and becomes negative. So
optimal prop blade AOA is different during climb than descent.
Received on Fri Sep 13 2013 - 21:36:31 CEST