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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.
The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily rigid; kites, hang gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft and airplanes that use wing morphing are all examples of fixed-wing aircraft. Flange – Flap – is a high-lift device used to reduce the stalling speed of an aircraft wing at a given weight.
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles , blisters, booms, or vertical stabilizers .
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft (in which a rotor mounted on a spinning shaft generates lift), and ornithopters (in which the wings oscillate to generate
In an example of synecdoche, the word for the wing came to refer to the entire aircraft. In the United States and Canada, the term "airplane" is used for powered fixed-wing aircraft. In the United Kingdom and Ireland and most of the Commonwealth , the term "aeroplane" ( / ˈ ɛər ə p l eɪ n / [ 13 ] ) is usually applied to these aircraft.
A straight leading edge may be swept or unswept, the latter meaning that it is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. As wing sweep is conventionally measured at the 25% chord line [ 3 ] an unswept wing may have a swept or tapered leading edge.
A blended-wing plane would have a much wider cabin than a traditional tube-and-wing design, meaning the rows could be more than a dozen people long.
A variable-sweep wing, colloquially known as a "swing wing", is an airplane wing, or set of wings, that may be modified during flight, swept back and then returned to its previous straight position. Because it allows the aircraft's shape to be changed, it is a feature of a variable-geometry aircraft.