Originally posted by ptxman
Here is a link
http://www.dreesecode.com/
Re your 2d vs 3d flow discussion, thats kind of what I figured. But let me try & pose the question a different way. Assume the pgm is a good airfoil simulator. It allows entry of any airfoil shape expressed in 2d. So I input the x,y values of airfoil A & B, it calculates the polars & coefficients at assumed fluid & velocity parameters. I dont know actual lift & drag of the 'wing' until the 3d info (span, planform geometry etc) is defined, but, if the wings will be identical in that regard, doesnt the 2d results allow me to qualitatively compare airfoil shapes A & B?
So now if I input the coordinates for 2 'airfoils' which just so happen to look like a fuse side view & again assume the span (fuse width) is the same in both cases, isnt there some information to be learned?
For a fuselage whose width is a small fraction of the fuselage length, the induced angle of attack will be many times greater than the airfoil's characteristic angle of attack. The induced drag will completely swamp out the profile drag and very little lift can be generated because the tip vortices will be so close together that very, very little downwash will be produced. In effect you will always be looking at the small difference between two large numbers, trying to deside what the difference means. The significance of the small difference will be lost in the noise of the uncertainty in the large numbers.