Abstract: This study simulated the aero-optical effect of beams with different projection directions around conformal turrets with different radii(400 mm and 2 000 mm). The Mach number was fixed, and the Reynolds number remained similar in all cases. The space-time characteristic of beam quality factor and beam tilt angle caused by the aero-optical effect was comprehensively studied. The aero-optical effect was mainly determined based on the mean flow effect, and the characteristic frequency of the mean flow effect was determined based on that of the flow around the turret. The spatial characteristic of the aero-optical effect was accurately reproduced in the reduced-scale experiments; however, the temporal characteristic was poorly simulated. It is pointed out that the wavefront distortion statistics and fluctuation values caused by aero-optical effect aero-optical effect appear to be minimized at a projection direction of 40° zenith in the forward direction, and the increase of projection radius can result in fast increaseing of the mean flow effect while maintaining the turbulent effect almost constant.