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."

Comments

Moving parts at supersonic speed

[chocho99]

...tend to break. Many things happen to airplanes when materials fail at high speed. Most all of them are bad. There are already problems with metal fatigue in current passenger airplanes - especially with hidden fractures in carbon fiber composites that are difficult to detect.

10 to 20% less weight means;

[jafac]

For military planes, 10-20% more bombs.
For civilian planes, refuel 10-20% less often (saving the airline a few bucks in labor - passing the savings directly on to the CEO's offshore account).

So what?