14 DAY TRIAL // Imagine waking up in the morning knowing that, once you get to work, you'll get the chance to cover a model plane in fluorescent oil and then put it in a super-fast wind tunnel. Pretty cool, right?
According to The Verge, this is exactly what engineers working with the NASA Langley Research Center did only a few days ago.
The aircraft they got to play with was a toy-sized model of a hybrid wing plane.
By the looks of it, the model plane that they sprayed with fluorescent oil and then put in a wind tunnel was merely 5.8% of the size of the aircraft the engineers hope to eventually build.
As the researchers explain, data collected while observing the oil swirl over the model craft will allow them to better estimate the final plane's lift and drag.
Otherwise put, it will help them determine how efficient the hybrid wing plane will be when it comes to flying.