Slashdot Mirror
Morphing Plane Wings for Efficient Flights
Roland Piquepaille writes "Airplanes, whether manned or unmanned, need to travel at various speeds. For example, a surveillance plane needs to fly fast to reach its destination point. Then, it needs to reduce its speed to achieve its surveillance mission. But with its fixed wings, it doesn't offer the same level of efficiency during these two phases. That's why Penn State engineers have devised airplane wings that change shape like a bird and have scales like a fish. Right now, the team has only built a tabletop model. So it will be a long time before you catch a plane and watch the wings disappear by looking through the window. This overview contains more details and references, including a couple of images describing the work done so far."
go-go-gadget mophing wings!
So it will be a long time before you catch a plane and watch the wings disappear by looking through the window.
Not if you fly USAir!
Normal Airplane by day, Surveilance Death plane by night. This will be called Viper 2. (grin)
You know...
...that thing had better be sporting a Decepticon insignia.
The coolest voice ever.
Airplanes, whether manned or unmanned, need to travel at various speeds.
Sweet Zeus, what a revelation.
I also did not realize that it would ever be possible to make wings disappear by looking through a window.
Where's my flying car?
There's .... oh, no, it's just changing shape again.
I think you're right! In fact, I think you should e-mail, or better yet, travel to U Penn personally and tell both the professor of aerospace engineering and a doctoral candidate that they both have totally missed the boat and are totally ignorant about swing wings!
You is the man! We at slashdot are eagerly awaiting more stupifyingly news of the obvious!
Trust penn state to copy an existing idea and flaunt it as something that they've developed.
Bah, that place is full of pretentious dorks who can never think up a thing on their own and yearn to be different just "because its cool".
Morons.
Wow, somebody didn't take the rejection letter very well, did they?
Finkployd
A bus/plane combination, how boring is that?
I want a bug/plane combination that can combine with other bug/plane combinations to form a giant velociraptor, with rockets that shoot and flashing eyes.
ohhhhh.... so they used java to make their plane.
damn java really is portable.
Kind of:
From Bruce Sterling's short story Deep Eddy:
Then later:
Congradulations! I hereby award you, Leroy7677, with the award for the post with the least amount of insightfullness. Many spend time thinking about a post, but it takes a true hero to post flamebait of this magnitude. Unfortunately, this distinction does not come with any cash reward, though expect someone who agrees with you to mod you up, even though it will be clear they do not understand the issue either! We also would have accepted "you are an idiot" or "You are a fool". For the Anti-insightful king of posting, this bud is for you.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
The department vanished when someone looked at it with Windows.
It's about time Mystique found some honest work.
what other tech from anime will we see soon.
Dear God, don't let it be anything involving tentacles and/or school girls.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
then they'd probably have to change that statistic that says you're more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash...
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...