Quote:
Most if not all agree the 18.5 was too slight to achieve any real significant advantage in the mach number..
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Who is most??
I guess Stormbirds never picked up a calculator and I am sure you are focusing on minutiae taking Jenkins out of context to fit your agenda.
In otherwords, if someone asked Jenkins if the ME-262 benefited from 18 degrees of sweep angle, he would pick up a calculator and say:
Our critical Mach number is raised by reciprocal of the cosine of the angle of sweep. So for 18 degrees of sweep we see a 1.05146 increase to critical mach.
So mach limit of Mach .8 becomes a new limit of .84.
Now at sea level that is represents a 30mph increase in speed!
Now the drag reduction is proportional to cos^2<angle of sweep>
Or a 9.5% reduction in drag.....
Not a bad call on the part of Mtt to add 18 degrees sweep based off their advanced knowledge of swept wing theory. By keeping the sweep moderate, they certainly avoided all the stability and control issues found with sweep angles and engine nacelles.
What is your opinion based on again?