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Aircraft wing showing the KFm4 Step. In the early 1960s, Richard Kline wanted to make a paper airplane that could handle strong winds, climb high, level off by itself and then enter a long downwards glide. After many experiments he was able to achieve this goal. He presented the paper airplane to Floyd Fogleman who saw it fly and resist stalling.
A fixed-wing aircraft may have more than one wing plane, stacked one above another: Biplane: two wing planes of similar size, stacked one above the other. The biplane is inherently lighter and stronger than a monoplane and was the most common configuration until the 1930s. The very first Wright Flyer I was a biplane.
Modern aircraft wings may have different airfoil sections along the wing span, each one optimized for the conditions in each section of the wing. Movable high-lift devices, flaps and sometimes slats, are fitted to airfoils on almost every aircraft. A trailing edge flap acts similarly to an aileron; however, it, as opposed to an aileron, can be ...
The horseshoe vortex model is a simplified representation of the vortex system present in the flow of air around a wing. This vortex system is modelled by the bound vortex (bound to the wing) and two trailing vortices, therefore having a shape vaguely reminiscent of a horseshoe.
An adaptive compliant wing is a wing which is flexible enough for aspects of its shape to be changed in flight. [1] [2] Flexible wings have a number of benefits.Conventional flight control mechanisms operate using hinges, resulting in disruptions to the airflow, vortices, and in some cases, separation of the airflow.
Nose, wing and ventral strakes Vortices over the wing strakes of an F/A-18E Super Hornet. In aviation, a strake is an aerodynamic surface generally mounted on the fuselage of an aircraft to improve the flight characteristics either by controlling the airflow (acting as large vortex generators) or by a simple stabilising effect.
Mean aerodynamic chord (MAC) is defined as: [6] = (), where y is the coordinate along the wing span and c is the chord at the coordinate y.Other terms are as for SMC. The MAC is a two-dimensional representation of the whole wing. The pressure distribution over the entire wing can be reduced to a single lift force
One promising approach that could rival slats are flexible wings. In flexible wings, much or all of a wing surface can change shape in flight to deflect air flow. The X-53 Active Aeroelastic Wing is a NASA effort. The adaptive compliant wing is a military and commercial effort. [7] [8] [9]