page_title: Nose cone design
section_title: Influence of the general shape
hierarchical_section_title: Nose cone design / Nose cone drag characteristics / Influence of the general shape
caption_attribution_description: English: A U.S. Air Force F-16 Fighting Falcon Block 40 aircraft after receiving fuel from a KC-135 Stratotanker aircraft during a mission over Iraq on 10 June 2008. This F-16 is assigned to the 34th EFS Balad Air Base, Iraq and is deployed from the 388th Fighter Wing at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Andy Dunaway/Released)
context_page_description: Given the problem of the aerodynamic design of the nose cone section of any vehicle or body meant to travel through a compressible fluid medium, an important problem is the determination of the nose cone geometrical shape for optimum performance. For many applications, such a task requires the definition of a solid of revolution shape that experiences minimal resistance to rapid motion through such a fluid medium, which consists of elastic particles.
context_section_description: Many references on nose cone design contain empirical data comparing the drag characteristics of various nose shapes in different flight regimes. The chart shown here seems to be the most comprehensive and useful compilation of data for the flight regime of greatest interest. This chart generally agrees with more detailed, but less comprehensive data found in other references (most notably the USAF Datcom).
  In many nose cone designs, the greatest concern is flight performance in the transonic region from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2. Although data are not available for many shapes in the transonic region, the table clearly suggests that either the Von Kármán shape, or power series shape with n = 1/2, would be preferable to the popular conical or ogive shapes, for this purpose.
  This observation goes against the often-repeated conventional wisdom that a conical nose is optimum for 'Mach-breaking'. Fighter aircraft are probably good examples of nose shapes optimized for the transonic region, although their nose shapes are often distorted by other considerations of avionics and inlets. For example, an F-16 Fighting Falcon nose appears to be a very close match to a Von Kármán shape.
caption: General Dynamics F-16 with a nose cone very close to the Von Kármán shape
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