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Air Force to Test Aeroelastic Wings

Posted by michael on from the silly-putty dept.

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."

3 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. More information on the subject... by prisen · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm a USAF member, and at the office lately we've been tossing around this interesting subject. Honestly, the article presented in the story was pretty lame; here's a few good links we've come up with, if you want to know a bit more about the technology:

    NASA Press Release
    Air Force Research Laboratory brief
    AAW photo collection (NASA)

  2. wing warping... by tanveer1979 · · Score: 5, Informative
    There is a very intersting applet about wing warping on NASA site.

    Actually wing warping was discontinued due to the fact that as modern airplanes became bigger and heavier rigid Duralium(Aluminium+Copper) and steel was used, which was not very conductive to bending, But I guess with carbon fibre based materials that will change.

    Wing warping gives a large degree of control. It is Demostrated very well in the java applet which shows the lift, the forces, the mechanics and the attitude on a model plane(like the one used by wright brothers).
    --
    My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
    FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
  3. A little history... and a further resource by DaedalusLogic · · Score: 5, Informative

    We are a little over a year away from the centennial of powered flight. The Wrights made their first successful powered flight on December 17th of 1903. The first run was something around 12 seconds... Later in the day they recorded durations of just short of 1 minute. The wing warping technique was used to control the roll of the airplane. The Europeans later developed the control surfaces known as ailerons to get around patents that the Wright Brothers had made on their wing warping technique. Ailerons eventually became the method of choice for future development for many engineering reasons.


    An article on this matter was published and graces the cover of the September 2002 Aerospace America magazine. The plane this system is being tested on if not intended for is the F-18, the writer of the article was J.R. Wilson. Aerospace America page at AIAA.org