supercruiser wrote:It appears to me that we are talking about two different variations of a design concept. The suction boundary layer control has been researched, as the article points out for a few decades. In the mid 1960's there was the X-21A aircraft that had an operational bleed-air driven suction boundary layer control system. As alluded to in the Bennett Daviss article, it was a maintenance headache. The x-21a had 800,000 or so tiny holes in the wing surface.
However, Daniel first mentioned what I would call a passive system for boundary layer control. Using the (relatively) high pressure at the leading edge of the wing to reenergize the boundary layer at the upper wing, trailing edge through holes in the wing structure. A test using model aircraft might be useful to see if the theory is plausible. With radio controlled models and live telemetry( available at your internet hobby shop) to a laptop; much data could be gained from field tests. Yes, there would be technical difficulties like scale effect and such.
Yes, true. But just to test the idea possible, radio controlled aircraft and aerodynamic tests on the small plane will help a lot. Yes, I think I didn't mension it, but you did, that the escaping air from the wing's top surface would be pushed down on the wing by the oundary layer of the wing.
Daniel.