Tuft (aeronautics)

In aeronautics, tufts are pieces of yarn or string, typically around 15 cm (6 in) long, attached to an aircraft surface in a grid pattern and imaged during flight.

Their motion can be observed and recorded to locate air flow features such as boundary layer separation and reattachment.

They are used during flight testing to study air flow direction, strength, and boundary layer properties.

[citation needed] The world's largest bed of tufts (18.6 m by 18.6 m, 61 feet by 61 feet) was created at NASA Ames Research Center to study air flow fields involving a helicopter's rotor disk.

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