NACA 23012 Airfoil: Design Features, Lift Characteristics and Applications

Read the five digits before the polar

The 5-digit lesson is the whole family. NACA 23012 is the member people actually build. The first digit, through the family’s rule, sets a design lift coefficient of 0.3. The second digit puts maximum camber at 15% of the chord. The third digit, 0, selects the standard forward-loaded mean line rather than the reflexed one. The last two digits are 12% thickness. The design lift coefficient is the lift the mean line was drawn to carry in inviscid thin-airfoil thinking. It is not CLmax, and it is not the lift you will measure at zero angle.

What that geometry is for

Four-digit sections put maximum camber near 40% chord. The 230 mean line piles the camber into the front and runs a straight camber line to the trailing edge. The practical result, in the linear range, is a useful lift coefficient with a quarter-chord moment that is milder than a 4-digit section forced up to the same design lift. That is why 23012 shows up on light-aircraft wings: the tail does not have to work as hard for the cruise lift, and 12% thickness still holds a spar. The same forward loading can sharpen the nose peak. With a rough leading edge, or at a low Reynolds number, the stall can be more abrupt than a 2412 pilot expects. Moment in cruise and behavior at stall are two different scores.

How to use the number

• Generate it from the 5-digit mean line and the standard thickness polynomial. A file that merely says 23012 and has its crest at 40% chord is a 4-digit section with a stolen name.
• Analyse at your Reynolds number and Mach number, then again with a trip. The design CL of 0.3 is the cruise neighborhood to read first, not the only point.
• Read CM about the quarter-chord at that CL, and read the shape of the lift break. A mild moment does not imply a mild stall.
• If you need the moment even closer to zero, that is the reflexed 23112 problem, not a small change to 23012.

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Where this sits in the series

In simple words: what this page is for

NACA 23012 asks for a design lift coefficient of 0.3 with the camber crest at 15% chord and 12% thickness. The forward camber is why the pitching moment stays milder than a 4-digit section asked for the same lift.

This lesson exists because section decisions fail when geometry, method labels and selection reasons are scattered. NACA 23012 Airfoil: Design Features, Lift Characteristics and Applications helps you keep a clean trail from shape to polar to choice.

Why the topic matters

Engineers lose time when a title sounds clear but the page only sketches the idea. This article expands NACA 23012 Airfoil: Design Features, Lift Characteristics and Applications so you can answer three questions without jargon: what is the idea, when do you use it, and how do you check it in a HENDOI product.

Read the sections above for the core definitions. Use the steps below to move from reading into a real project trail you can share with a teammate.

How to apply this in HENDOI

In practice: create a HENDOI account or log in, open HENFOIL, bring a section in (create, import DAT, or digitize), pass the geometry gate, climb the analysis ladder only as far as the decision needs, then compare and archive. Every calculated number should keep its method label.

When the section choice is ready for the aircraft, continue in HENSYNTH for mission, compliance and trades. Same account. Same plans.

What this page will not claim: a teaching polar or geometry note is not a flight-Re certificate. HENFOIL labels methods so you know what you bought. Tunnel data and professional judgement still sit outside any single software run.

Checklist before you leave this page

• Can you state the idea of NACA 23012 Airfoil: Design Features, Lift Characteristics and Applications in one sentence?
• Do you know which product owns the next action — HENFOIL or HENSYNTH?
• Will every number you keep carry a method label or a stored-run source?
• If you are new here, have you opened Register or Login?

Related reading on this site

• Airfoil Parameterization Methods: NACA Equations, CST and Spline-Based Geometry
• How to Compare NACA 0012, NACA 2412 and NACA 4412 Airfoil Profiles
• NACA 0015 vs NACA 0018: Comparing Symmetric Airfoil Profiles
• How to Read NACA 4-Digit Airfoil Designations: NACA 2412 Explained
• All HENDOI blog articles
• HENFOIL product page
• HENSYNTH product page
• Pricing — Student, Professional & Team
• FAQ
• Login · Register now

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• Index: all HENFOIL airfoil lessons

These pages teach the ideas. They are not wind-tunnel data and not a certification analysis. When a number matters, compute it at a stated Reynolds number, Mach number and transition setting, and keep the method label on the result. In HENFOIL that production polar is a VIC polar — see the analysis ladder and the polar field guide.