The Pentagon's Supersonic, Shape-Shifting Assassin

grammar fascist writes "CNN reports that Northrop Grumman is under contract to build a new supersonic, shape-shifting bomber by 2020. The main innovation is in its single, rotating wing. From the article: '[It] will cruise with its 200-foot-long wing perpendicular to its engines like a normal airplane. But just before the craft breaks the sound barrier, its single wing will swivel around 60 degrees (hence the name) so that one end points forward and the other back. This oblique configuration redistributes the shock waves that pile up in front of a plane at Mach speeds and cause drag. When the Switchblade returns to subsonic speeds, the wing will rotate back to perpendicular.'"

Comments

Re:NASA did a test plane decades ago

[Geoduck_87]

The control issues were also the subject of a well-regarded Ph.D. Thesis at Stanford in the early 1990's. The original NASA aircraft had the axis of wing rotation vertical in level, forward flight. The pivot joint was at the wingspan centerline.

The conclusions of the Ph.D. thesis was that one gets a much more controllable AD-1 if one modifies the wing / fuselage configuration as follows:

1. Tilt the pivot axis a few degrees away from the side of the aircraft that has the forward sweep of the wing.

2. The wing needs to be mounted a few percent off its centerline (that's right, an asymmetric configuration).

3. A couple other conclusions that I can not recall (anhedral / dihedral; spanwise changing airfoil; etc)?.

Note: This was an analysis of the AD-1. The fuselage / wing interactions drove quite a bit of the specific stability / control based modifications. If one has a different fuselage (for example, the illustration in the CNN article), the specifics will change.

Re:Correction: stale data.

[torstenvl]

Except that it's false to say "Americans can afford to drive SUVs." What you really mean -- unless you intend to deceive people -- is that SOME Americans can afford to drive SUVs. Many others (thirty-eight million Americans) have "insufficient income to provide the food, shelter and clothing needed to preserve health" (Figures from the Census Bureau, definition quoted from the Orshansky Thresholds used thereby).

I think there are fewer than thirty-eight million SUV drivers in the United States. If I'm right, then from a purely quantitative perspective, the Swedes have a better standard of living than a purely capitalist United States would have.

Re:What a great idea

[poofyhairguy82]

some of us regular people think we could reduce spending to a mere $100 billion, spend the other $400 billion on health, education, infrastructure, etc., and still have more than enough power to defend our country from anyone else in the world. We outspend the next 20 countries combined---we don't need to spend that much.

Then regular people like yourself need to open their eyes.

We could spend much less than we do now and defend our nation from any "real" threat- that is true- but most of our military spending is not to defend us from threats. The U.S. spends so much on the armed forces for the same reason that at one point the U.S.S.R had enough nukes to destroy the entire planet a few times over- we want to make the idea of (a major nation) going against us in any significant way (as in more than "we don't support what you are doing") a horrifying thought. We want to have so much power that the rest of the world is FORCED to follow our lead or pay the price for getting in front.

China and India have over a billion people each. The economic force of such numbers mean that realistically THEY should be the superpowers, not us. But they (in my lifetime) will not dare challenge the authority of the U.S. because they know that we have a millitary that can take them back to the stone ages if they cross us. Because of our military, we get access to cheaper and more resources than they do (Iraq oil anyone?) Because of our military, we will stay on top of the world long after when we should no longer be.

There is also that whole "military spending leads to domestic jobs" thing as well.