Airfoil Data
USA48

The USA 48 AIRFOIL is a 10.2% chord-thickness airfoil with a maximum camber of 5.1% at 40% chord, suited to general-aviation and UAV wing design. At zero angle of attack the cambered geometry generates positive lift, giving an estimated zero-lift angle of -5.1°.

Thin airfoil theory predicts a stall angle near 11.7° and a peak lift-to-drag ratio around 64 at typical UAV and light-aircraft Reynolds numbers — useful benchmarks before running a full XFOIL or NeuralFoil polar. The 10% thickness provides structural depth for main-spar placement without excessive drag penalty at moderate speeds.

Designers evaluating the USA48 typically compare it against profiles of similar thickness: FX 60-157 AIRFOIL, GOE 526 AIRFOIL, AH 93-K-131/15, Fage & Collins 3, AS5048 (18%) | Ref: http://www.krnet.org/as504x/ [original link: http://amber.aae.uiuc.edu/~ashok/kr2/airfoils/tests/]. The GOE 16K AIRFOIL is another reference profile frequently considered alongside it.