Uploaded January 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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This video shows how to write a Python script to download all the airfoil files from the UIUC Airfoil Database. The link to the database is the following:

https://m-selig.ae.illinois.edu/ads/coord_database.html

I'll be using these airfoil files in my future Source Panel Method and Vortex Panel Method videos. I'm using Python because it's easy to scrape data from websites. Once you get all the files once, you won't need to do it again.

===== RELEVANT LINKS =====
► You can download the Python code from my website
joshtheengineer.com/2019/01/30/uiuc-airfoil-database-file-download

► Anaconda Navigator Download
anaconda.com/distribution

GitHub: Panel Methods
► github.com/jte0419/Panel_Methods

===== RELEVANT VIDEOS =====
How To: Run XFoil from MATLAB
→ youtube.com/watch?v=bWjo3N9COz4

Load Airfoil Coordinates from UIUC Files into MATLAB
→ Coming soon!

Panel Method Motivation and Introduction
→ Coming soon!

Panel Method Geometry Definitions
→ Coming soon!

Source Panel Derivation and Coding
→ Coming soon!

Vortex Panel Derivation and Coding
→ Coming soon!

===== NOTES =====
► This code used in this video downloads all the files from the main page of the database. In my next video on how to load these airfoil files in MATLAB, I show how it might be easier to download all the Selig file formats instead. The code for that can also be found at the link above for the Python code.
► I'm not an expert at Python. I'm still learning. The code might not be the most efficient way to do something, but it works, and that's all I care about for now.
► Thanks to Dr. Selig for giving me permission to scrape the database for every airfoil data file.