THE MOTION OF A BODY THROUGH A LARGE-SCALE INHOMOGENEITY IN A STRATIFIED ATMOSPHERE

The free motion of a blunted body of revolution of considerable length through a large-scale cloud of heated gas (a thermal) floating in a s tratified atmosphere is investigated. An effective numerical method of determining the trajectory of the body is proposed, based on the simu ltaneous solution of flow and ballistics problems. The flow problem is solved by a numerical method that is very economical in computer time , based on an expansion in a small parameter [1, 2], which is the angl e of attack, in conjunction with the global-iteration method [2, 3]. T he effect of the floating large-scale cloud of heated gas on trajector y, spatial orientation and stability of the body is determined. It is shown that under certain flight conditions the presence of a floating cloud of reduced density along the path of the body may lead to flippi ng of the body.