High-Lift Aerodynamics - another 100 years anniversary

Abstract

Depending on when to count from, the fundamentals of today’s high-lift systems on aircraft have been discovered 100 years ago. In 1918, the German Gustav Lachmann filed the first patent on the “slotted wing” – the predecessor of what we see at the wing leading edge of any large transport aircraft today to secure the needed low flight speed at take-off and landing. Together with the Fowler flap at the wing trailing edge, this laid the foundation of air transportation as we see it today and which would not be possible without them. The lecture draws a line through the major inventions of high-lift systems from an aerodynamic perspective including the major mile stones and is aimed to identify what’s next, meaning the still numerous challenges for research regarding low speed aerodynamics and high-lift systems.