Air Force to Test Aeroelastic Wings

firegate writes "The New Scientist is reporting that the US Air Force is planning to test a variant of the Wing Warping steering system used on the original Wright Brothers plane to steer new supersonic jets. They've invested $41 million in the project so far, and the first test flight will take place next month at NASA's Dryden research center in California."

Watch material science expand even further

[Ma$$acre]

We've seen some amazing things due to the innovation of flight. Carbon Fiber, Titanium, Many plastics, even the IC on Silicon. The list could go on for quite a while... if you took NASA and the Air Force out of the material science loop, we'd be living in an entirely different world.

Look for this idea to spawn a host of new things from more complex fly-by-wire systems and innovative materials development and use.

Air Force Times

[batboy78]

I think I actually read something about this in the Air Force Times (you can pick one up on most military bases). There is usually so much propoganda in there that its nothing but slop but sometimes they have something interesting. This is one of the reasons I got out of the AF, they spend all their money on R&D instead of paying the troops what they deserve to get paid.

There are Airmen (E4 and below) that make almost nothing and are in charge of thousand user networks, or several million LOC systems. It drives me crazy.

The Simpsons

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing that came to my mind upon reading the post was the Simpsons episode where Lisa's future is foretold. In a sci-fi setting an old Wright Brothers type plane flies by and Lisa's boyfriend says: "I'm so glad they re-evaluated those old designs" anyone remember that one :)

Variable Wing Geometry in Anime

[Guppy]

In the Anime OAV Macross Plus, the General Galaxy YF-21 [geocities.com] Prototype piloted by Guld Bowman used a variable wing geometry as part of it's design, a feature also incorporated in the production VF-22 Sturmvogel [geocities.com] appearing in Macross 7. Of course, the mechanism is different in that (besides being fictional), a shape-memory alloy was used to allow the wing to change shape.

Pilots are still the limiting factor

[mike3411]

Advances in maneuverability are great, but pilots are, and have been for some time, the limiting factor. The current generation of fighter jets can produce G forces that greatly exceed what even well-trained humans can endure. I think the next major advance will be fully remote fighter jets. If the military had some sense they'd be using cameras on the jets and some kind of vr for the pilots. Voila, war is video games, and all of a sudden I'm an elite fighter pilot!
And my millions of hours logged in Counter-Stike are merely preparation for remote-controlled human-like spec ops. Yeah....

Re:uh...excuse me...

[anzha]

lol. Yeah, for the swing wing, but what I meant was the automatic adaption of the shape of the wing itself for different speeds.

Here [aircraftstories.free.fr] is the only photo I can find. Note the date at the bottom.

Just another adaptation of nature...

[foniksonik]

Well all the birds and insects will be glad to hear that we superior humans have finally decided to get with the program and utilize controllable surfaces to improve our aerodynamics(think feathers and flexible wings)... now if we could only talk to the hummingbird and bumblebee [bbc.co.uk] specialists out there to begin using micro-turbulence effects to our advantage as well... hmmmm, interesting.

Re:wing warping...

[Eightlines]

Actually this technology hasn't been retired since the Wright Brothers flew their airplane, we've been using it for years in kite flying.

This [revkites.com] is a good example of wing warping on a quad line kite. Essentially all you're doing in modifying the wing shape to grab or drop the airflow, in doing so you can manuevre it forwards, backwards, and in circles. Parafoils, Dual lines, even Fighter kites all use this method to keep them in the sky.

Now is it just me or does the plane featured in the article look like it just has bigger ailerons? I want to see the actual wings twist via some internal mechanism, thereby leaving no gaps in the wing surface. You'd figure this would allow higher speeds as there would be less drag.

Re:Test speeds.

[nihilvt]

It's extremely hard to test at supersonic speeds because supersonic wind tunnels are designed for a specific mach number. The geometry of the wind tunnel must be changed if a new supersonic mach speed is desired. Most supersonic wind tunnels have multiple test sections, each designed for a specific speed. Because of the nature of supersonic flow, the wind tunnel geometry must be "right" at each supersonic speed in order to ensure wave-free, "clean flow". Otherwise, any data collected is useless. As for testing at a sonic speed (mach = 1), that is extremely hard. The *only* place in a wind tunnel where the mach number can be one is at the throat (in a converging/diverging nozzle). Note that adding heat will always drive flow towards mach 1 (regardless of supersonic or subsonic flow). The only way to accelerate flow once it has reached mach one in a wind tunnel is a cross secional area increase. Wind tunnels are not developed so that one could place a test piece at the throat of the tunnel (I've never heard of one that is.)

Can hardly wait for my next model!

[Vortran]

I fly R/C models, and so does the USAF. As a matter of fact many of their prototypes are built as radio controlled models and kinks ironed out (pun intended) before the full-size version is built.

I'm excited about the prospect of seeing a modern style (we already have Kitthawk-style) model designed with wing warping.

Vortan out

Boeing had a similar project back in the '80's

[SteveJohnson]

I worked on a similar project for Boeing back in the mid-1980's. It was a small R&D project for the Air Force modifing a F-111 with a Mission Adaptive Wing. There were hydrolics inside the wing that would warp it into various shapes depending on mission. In attack mode the wing would flatten out for performance. For cruising it would get more camber for efficient lift.

It was controlled by an Z-80 microprocessor programmed entirely in assembly language. I left the project before first flight. Hope we didn't kill anybody with a misplaced LDIR