Originally Posted by
Doug Cronkhite
The only problem with tufting an airplane is a little thing called Boundary Layer. It's interesting info, but not the whole picture. You really need smoke injection in a wind tunnel to get the full info.
What will you learn with a (potentially) more refined set-up? I think that in this instance, tufting is going to give a very valid picture as to what is going on. Every method will have it's drawbacks, and this seems to be a excellent way of getting great results in airflow viz relatively cheaply and easily. In fact Airbus are currently using tufting on their A350 prototype, even though BL effects would be much more critical in their case.