See also on Raymer, Appendix D on airfoils data.

On Janes, the kind of airfoils used on commercial aircraft are often indicated.
Also at http://www.ae.uiuc.edu/m-selig/ads/aircraft.html, you can nd the incomplete guide to airfoil usage: a wide collection of airfoils (root and tip) as used in many aircraft, both conventional and canard congurations. A large airfoil archive is available on BB. You can use DesignFoil to visualize them directly, or javafoils (you will have to copy and paste the content of the .dat les)

See also http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/airfoils/q0041.shtml for the mathematical relations describing the thickness distribution and camber line denition of NACA airfoils. Find there also a table summarizing advantages, disadvantages and typical application of all the NACA airfoils families (actually only the series 4, 5 and 6 are of interest!)

NACA 4 digits have rather gradual stall behaviour. They features gradual increase in drag and pitch moment for increasing angle of attack. They are good also in (low speed) trainers, which have to operate in many different conditions (not one xed Cldes)

C-5 Galaxy:
Fairchild A10:


NACA 0012

6716 root ; 6713 tip

NACA 5 digits are generally appropriated for personal/utility or regional commuters aircraft (Mcruise < 0.4), with (t/c)max = 14%.
The position of the max camber is closer to the nose with respect to the 4 digit series. They feature high values of Clmax (the highest of all the NACA families) but a rather abrupt stall behaviour. Due to this poor stall behaviour NACA 5 airfoils are quite often used together with NACA 4 airfoils installed at the wing tip. (see next lecture concerning the stall behaviour of wings)

See also http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/airfoils/q0041.shtml for the mathematical relations describing the thickness distribution and camber line denition of NACA airfoils

F16 NACA 64A204

F22 uses a NACA 6 as well!

NACA 6 digits are designed to reach extended zones of laminar ow and typically features a gradual stall behaviour. The drag bucket is however very sensitive to the cleanness and smoothness of the wing surface. Dirt, water drops, insects might annihilate this advantage (the bucket get lled!)
However, the smooth pressure gradient at the nose turned out to be very positive for increasing the critical Mach number! Hence, these airfoils became soon very popular for high speed aircraft in general! Also for supersonic military aircraft (in this case with value of (t/c)max= 0.4% for wave drag)
Generally NACA 6 airfoils reach lower Clmax values than NACA 4 and 5 airfoils.