What is the most common airfoil?

Question

What is the most common airfoil?

Answer 1

Andy B is correct.

An asymmetric airfoils is one that is curvier on one side than it is on the other.  This is referred to as "camber."

An airplane's wings are curvier on top than on the bottom.  this accelerates airflow over the top and produces lift.  The horizontal stabilizer is simply an upside down wing with the curvier side pointing down.  This produces downforce and essentially pushes the nose of the airplane up.

If you are talking about the wing planform (the shape when viewed from above) The most common in airliners is a sweepback design and in personal trainers it is a straight wing.  Sometimes called a "hershey bar" because of its overall squareness.  They both have their advantages and disadvantages but that would take far too long to explain here.

Answer 2

By the most produced aircraft:

Cessna 172: 43,000+ made; NACA 2412 (modifed) airfoil

Polikarpov PO-2: 40,000+ made; TsAGI-541 airfoil

Ilyushin Il-2: 36,183 made; Clark YH airfoil

Messerschmitt Bf 109: 35,000 made; NACA 2R1 14.2 airfoil

Cessna 182: 25,000+ made; NACA 2412 (modified) airfoil.

Cessna 150: 23,954 made; NACA 2412 (modified) airfoil.

Supermarine Spitfire: 22,351 made; NACA 2213 airfoil.

Answer 3

There are dozens of common airfoils, depending on the application. Jet? Glider? Transport? Aerobatic? General Aviation Aircraft? Supersonic? Subsonic? Low Speed?  Low drag? High Lift? Etc Etc Etc. Many of the more modern aircraft employ a combination of two or more airfoil shapes on the same wing. And then there are airfoils used on propellers, rotor blades, stabilizers, flight control surfaces, lifting bodies, even boomerangs...it's a very broad question you asked. If you want to know the most common SERIES of airfoil designs, I'd say those have to be the Wortmans, Epplers and NACA's.

For light aircraft, two of the most famous and common conventional airfoils are the "Clark Y" and the "NACA 4412", and they have been used on dozens, if not hundreds, of successful aircraft designs.  These are probably the two most studied airfoils in aerodynamics history. Not modern (they date to the 1930's), but still very popular, as are the direct descendents of them.

Answer 4

A wing?

Answer 5

wing

Answer 6

If you are talking numbers, then asymmetric would be the most popular.  An asymmetric wing is found on airliners, business jets, and small personal aircraft like Cessna and Piper.