Liquid anti-contamination systems for hybrid laminar flow control aircraft - A review of the critical issues and important experimental results

Contamination of the aircraft leading edges by insects and other airborne particles is a major operational concern for the implementation of hybrid laminar flow control (HLFC) - an active drag reduction technique, which has the potential to produce significant fuel savings for airliners. A review of the critical issues is provided, encompassing the transition mechanism, insect distributions and concepts for contamination mitigation. The use of liquid/foam-based systems has proved to be very successful, as is evident in the review of experimental work.