Commercial Airplane Design Principles

Appendix D

Graphs of Critical Mach Number

Critical Mach numbers predicted for various NACA 6-series of airfoils are shown as a function of lift coefficient in curves presented by Abbott et al. (1945). The major effects are that both thickness and camber tend to reduce the critical Mach number. The use of these curves in predicting drag effects due to compressibility is discussed in Section 9.14.

Reference

1. Abbott I.H. et al., 1945. Summary ...