Changing Aircraft Wing Shapes

[longknife]

There may be some major changes in how aircraft wings are shaped and work in the not-so-distant future. Instead of flaps and ailerons, they just might change shape as needed – almost like bird wings! There are several stories on this. First from Aircraft wings will change radically in the future with another from NASA eyes revolutionary aircraft wing technology Fox News


Should be interesting to see what the future holds.

 

[jwoodie]

Sounds like a return to the Wright Brothers' original design. The most impressive thing about it was their ability to fly the damn thing without a computer.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

There may be some major changes in how aircraft wings are shaped and work in the not-so-distant future. Instead of flaps and ailerons, they just might change shape as needed – almost like bird wings! There are several stories on this. First from Aircraft wings will change radically in the future with another from NASA eyes revolutionary aircraft wing technology Fox News


Should be interesting to see what the future holds.

Woulda thought they figured this out by now. Which shapes work, which don't. For microvehicles you can use insect shapes like, but that doesn't work when you scale it up to piloted vehicle sizes afaik. Piloted combat aircraft are almost obsolete now. Combination of drones and railgun/energy weapons being deployed will make them obsolete eventually. No such thing as ACM vs a laser or hypersonic railgun round.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Sounds like a return to the Wright Brothers' original design. The most impressive thing about it was their ability to fly the damn thing without a computer.

Yep. Only this is metal wing warping. I see it's being tested on a Biz Jet, I'll bet the flutter tests were fun (read:scary!)

 

[westwall]

Fatigue will be a major issue to overcome.

 

[longknife]

Isn't it amazing how some of the "new" discoveries end up being bringing some of the old stuff back and updating it?

 

[Steven_R]

Fatigue will be a major issue to overcome.

Not to mention routine maintenance. It's bad enough with flaps and ailerons and canards. Now think about how fun it will be to disassemble an entire wing or tail just to get to parts because access panels are no longer sufficiently strong enough because they compromise the structural integrity of a warp-wing design.

It kind of reminds me of the forward-swept wing craze of the 70s and 80s. They were found to be a solution in search of a question.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

Fatigue will be a major issue to overcome.

Pilot or aircraft? US military pilots are issued amphetamines to offset fatigue on long missions.