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."
Right now, the team has only built a tabletop model.
I've invented a device that will convert ordinary cat dander into light sweet crude. No, I haven't actually tried to run it yet, but I do have this cool tabletop model.
This space intentionally left blank.
What sort of voodu does one need to have to have to make things disappear just by looking at them? I hope no terrorists are on these flights and have notions of looking out the window. Soon the FAA will screen all passengers for passengers attempting to smuggle "eyes" onto the airplane.
Those blind people have it good! Their planes always have lift.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Sounds like the /. editors are speechless!
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
ha! I knew they would run out of deptartments someday
I have no developed opinion on the bararity of foo. -homeobocks, Gentoo Forums
Who is Roland Piquepaille? His submissions seem to show up here every other day (and always contain a pointer to his blog so he can collect some advertising eyeballs).
It's good that PSU is a party school, because it gets the idiot frat boy business majors out of the labs so we can do real research!
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.