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Shape Changing Plane In Development
Eh-Wire writes "The University of Florida has a short article on the "morphing wing" drone they are developing for a small aircraft that can swoop through parking garages, dive into alleys and land on balconies. Close-up video of seagulls in flight was the inspiration for the design of the drone. A still image of the drone shows an aircraft that looks surprisingly gull-like. A video shows the "wing morphing" in action on a static mounted drone. There is also a link to quite a few more videos in the article but it's not real obvious. Some guys get all the phun jobs!"
As old as powered flight. The Wright Brothers patented a wing warping system that was used on the Wright Flier, which was of course, the first powered heavier than air craft to successfuly fly.
It's surprising that we don't copy nature more often. I mean, animals in existence today have had millions of years or more to adapt, producing incredibly elegant solutions to problems. Of course, reverse engineering these adaptations is difficult, because there's no manual, and no real designer to interrogate.
For the same reason that a 1950 F1 car can kick a 2005 Geo's ass.
The Geo and the Cessna do win on reliability, comfort, and price, though.
If they're particularly adventurous, the designers will do ti by making the wing sweep angle changeable, like in the F-111, F-14 and B-1. Hmmm, two dogs out of three....
It hasnt been done the way this video depicts in real planes as there's a lot of costs:
- Making the wing hinged or flexible means you need a whole heapin helping of actuators to keep it in position. Actuators are made of steel-- very heavy. if it's a fighter plane, the actuators have to be able to hold the wing in position under multiple-G loads. But that requires heavier actuators, which increase the loads...
- Actuators are usually hydraulically powered. Not good in a military airplane which often loses hydraulics due to flak and bullets.
- Hinged or flexible wings usually can't be hollowed out to hold fuel, landing gear, or munitons. Which makes the rest of the plane bigger in proportion to hold those items.
So you end up with a plane that's big, heavy, unreliable all the time, versus having the flexible wing, which only helps in some flight regimes, some of the time. Generally the good doesnt outweigh the bad.Seriously, it really is amazing to go the beach and see a small sparrow and realize that the tiny bird flies better, is more maneuverable, more energy efficient, has better sensors, better object avoidance and has better AI than the best blue-sky, black budget skunk works project out of Area 51.
It is humbling to think how far we far to go to even come close to what evolution has randomly created.
That is the first thing that came to mind when I saw the video. However, I am not seeing it as a funny. Very robust wings of that nature could certainly be used in the same manner as the 'Thopter.