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Sweep theory is an aeronautical engineering description of the behavior of airflow over a wing when the wing's leading edge encounters the airflow at an oblique angle. The development of sweep theory resulted in the swept wing design used by most modern jet aircraft, as this design performs more effectively at transonic and supersonic speeds.
This is to compensate for other design elements' influence on the dihedral effect. These other elements (such as wing sweep, vertical mount point of the wing, etc.) may be more difficult to change than the dihedral angle. As a result, differing amounts of dihedral angle can be found on different types of fixed-wing aircraft.
A variable-sweep wing allows the pilot to use the optimum sweep angle for the aircraft's speed at the moment, whether slow or fast. The more efficient sweep angles available offset the weight and volume penalties imposed by the wing's mechanical sweep mechanisms. Its greater complexity and cost make it practical mostly for military aircraft.
The United States Air Force Stability and Control Digital DATCOM is a computer program that implements the methods contained in the USAF Stability and Control DATCOM to calculate the static stability, control and dynamic derivative characteristics of fixed-wing aircraft. Digital DATCOM requires an input file containing a geometric description ...
One problem with the forward-swept design is that when a swept wing yaws sideways (moves about its vertical axis), one wing retreats while the other advances. On a forward-swept design, this reduces the sweep of the rearward wing, increasing its drag and pushing it further back, increasing the amount of yaw and leading to directional instability.
For any non-zero sideslip angle dihedral wings causes a rolling moment which tends to return the aircraft to the horizontal, as does back swept wings. With highly swept wings the resultant rolling moment may be excessive for all stability requirements and anhedral could be used to offset the effect of wing sweep induced rolling moment.
This article focuses on the most common application, the angle of attack of a wing or airfoil moving through air. In aerodynamics, angle of attack specifies the angle between the chord line of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft and the vector representing the relative motion between the aircraft and the atmosphere. Since a wing can have twist, a ...
push the right wingtip up, the left down, a left roll-out owing to the dihedral angle, cause the left wing to go faster, the right wing slower, a roll-in, push the side areas of the aircraft above the centre of gravity to the left, a roll-out, push the side areas of the aircraft below the centre of gravity to the left, a roll-in,