AAE Research Facility Receives Prominent Mention in Aviation Week Magazine

Steven Walker, deputy director of Darpa's Tactical Technology Office, was quoted by Aviation Week & Space Technology saying that Purdue's Quiet Tunnel "gave us confidence we won't get a [boundary layer] transition problem, but of course we have to go and actually fly the vehicle now."

The quiet wind tunnel operation is critical for collecting data to show precisely how air flows over a vehicle's surface in flight. No other wind tunnel runs quietly while conducting experiments in airstreams traveling at Mach 6, said Steven Schneider, an aerospace engineer and professor in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

"A quiet wind tunnel yields more accurate data because it more closely simulates flight," he said.

See the Aviation Week article attached below.