NAA P-51D Mustang: Landing Gear Dims
I am currently working on the Landing Gear geometry dimensions to check the data for accuracy. During the course of this research, I thought it may be of interest to share some Excel formula for converting angles shown in Deg Min Sec to decimal degrees and vice versa.
The plan angle for the OLEO Strut relative to 25% wing chord is 4° 32′ 35.14″ as shown in the above sketch which translates to 4.543094 degrees.
The accuracy of the angles and dimensions in the NAA documentation is rather good with small deviations occurring of only 0.003mm when developing this in CAD. I should note this deviation is negligible and for all intents and purposes can be ignored. However, I like to get this stuff right so I have set about developing the landing gear dimensions to be as close as possible to be exact.
As I have already developed the cad geometry I measured the same angle above from the CAD system which is now giving me 4.54309673 degrees.
In Excel:
Starting from the left; in column A; I have input the angle from the cad system, then systematically converted to Deg, Min, Sec in separate cells and then converted back to a decimal angle in column E.
The equations for each cell are as shown below:
Just enter the equation in the cells denoted; so for the first equation, this would be in cell B2. The latter equation works fine without parenthesis, which I included just to keep the equation tidy.
The Landing gear geometry will be recorded in a separate spreadsheet and added to the P-51 Ordinate Package. Mustang P-51 Ordinates
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