E-Racer Blended Winglet and Interference Drag CFD Analysis

After nearly a year of work this is likely the most labor intensive video I have made. Today I answer a complicated question about airplane winglets, specifically those on Shirl Diskey’s E-Racer design. By running several of versions of the plane’s wing through a computational fluid dynamics program and building off of a 2007 study on an E-Racer modified with a 9 inch radius winglet curve, we can see how much different levels of curvature affect cruise performance. Sources and additional resources: Marc Zeitlin’s 2007 Oshkosh presentation: Plane&Pilot article on experimental aircraft: EAA article about Burt Rutan’s VariEze: NASA resource on winglet history: h