 A Northrop YB-49 flying wing. Flying wing is the generic designation given for a fixed-wing aircraft configuration which is capable of stable, controllable flight without the aid of lifting surfaces other than the main wing itself, that is, without auxiliary surfaces such as "tails" and "canards". Additionally, the term is usually applied to aircraft in which most of the payload is transported inside the main wing, the latter comprising most of its structural volume. A variation of such configuration in which a payload bearing fuselage is present is usually known by the less restrictive designation of "tailless aircraft". Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1468x1166, 220 KB) Northrop YB-49 Flying wing, a heavy bomber prototype Source: USAF Cropped version of Image:YB49-1 300. ...
Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1468x1166, 220 KB) Northrop YB-49 Flying wing, a heavy bomber prototype Source: USAF Cropped version of Image:YB49-1 300. ...
A YB-49 being flown during a test flight The Northrop YB-49 was a prototype jet-powered flying wing heavy bomber aircraft developed for the United States Air Force shortly after World War II. It was a development of the piston-engined Northrop YB-35, and the two YB...
An Air France Boeing 777, a modern passenger jet. ...
A Laughing Gull on the beach in Atlantic City. ...
The fuselage can be short, and seemingly unaerodynamic, as in this Christen Eagle 2 The fuselage (from the French fuselé spindle-shaped) is an aircrafts main body section that holds crew and passengers or cargo. ...
Historically, the flying wing has been defended by many as potentially the most efficient aircraft configuration from the point of view of aerodynamics and structural weight. Such a notion usually comes from the idea that the absence of any aircraft components other than the wing should naturally provide those benefits. On the other hand, the aircraft's wing should be able to provide flight stability and control "by itself", a requirement which in principle imposes additional constraints to the wing design problem. Therefore, the expected gains in weight and drag could also be partially or totally impaired due to design compromises needed to provide stability and control. Aerodynamics (shaping of objects that affect the flow of air, liquid or gas) is a branch of fluid dynamics concerned with the study of forces and gas flows. ...
An object falling through a gas or liquid experiences a force in direction opposite to its motion. ...
Design issues Although the discussion about flying wing aircraft usually surrounds the balance between aerodynamic/weight performance and stability/control requirements, those are by no means the only important design factors. Other issues such as (but not limited to) high-speed compressibility effects, useful payload volume, cabin pressurization, satisfaction of certification safety requirements and industrial/commercial risk must also come into play to determine whether or not the flying wing configuration is the best solution for a given aircraft mission.
Stability and control Flight stability can be loosely defined as the ability of an aircraft to recover its original flight state after suffering a transitory external force perturbation, such as imposed by wind gusts or arbitrary pilot control input. In recent years, automatic flight control systems could be used to achieve that goal with relatively little limitations, but at the expense of system sophistication, as in the case of most modern fighter aircraft. However, the "traditional" way of providing flight stability is to design the aircraft aerodynamic and mass distribution characteristics in such a way that it is inherently stable when in flight. An A-10 Thunderbolt II, F-86 Sabre, P-38 Lightning and P-51 Mustang fly in formation during an air show at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. ...
As a first requirement for that, the aircraft must be statically stable: whenever it is disturbed from its flight path, aerodynamic forces and moments must arise in directions that tend to bring the aircraft back to its original flight state. A classical simplified example is that of an arrow in flight. The arrow is built such that its center of gravity (CG) is positioned at a point which is ahead of the point where the resultant of aerodynamic forces is applied, its aerodynamic center (AC). Whenever the arrow is misaligned to the relative wind due to some disturbance, the increase in resultant aerodynamic force (lift) on the AC produces a moment around the CG which tends to make the arrow realign to the relative flow. Japanese arrow (ya) and head // Weapon An arrow is a pointed projectile that is shot with a bow. ...
This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ...
The aerodynamic center of an airfoil moving through a fluid is the point at which the pitching moment generated by the airfoil is constant regardless of the angle of attack[1], [2]. This is an aspect of aerodynamics. ...
Like the arrow, any aircraft can be made statically stable, regardless of its external configuration, provided its aerodynamic center (AC) lies behind the center of gravity (CG). The main difference between the two scenarios is that, unlike the arrow, the aircraft must continuously generate a lift force that opposes its weight, making sustained flight possible. Therefore, an aircraft in flight has an ever present moment component around its CG, due to the lift force it generates at some point behind it. An opposing moment must be generated to achieve balance, in a process generically referred to as "trimming". Lift consists of the sum of all the fluid dynamic forces on a body perpendicular to the direction of the external flow approaching that body. ...
The word trim can mean: Adjustment of sails on a ship or boat. ...
For conventional, "tailed" aircraft configurations, the trimming moment is provided by auxiliary lifting surfaces: horizontal and vertical ("fins") stabilizers, usually rear-mounted on relatively long fuselages. The forces produced by such surfaces can be varied either by adjusting their incidence or through the use control surfaces, in the form of movable trailing edge sections such as elevators and rudders. That arrangement provides a quite convenient way of producing trimming and control moments, since relatively small forces on the tail surfaces are required due to the fuselage "lever arm" available. The worlds oldest depiction of a rudder. ...
Flying wings must provide trimming and control moments without such a surface/fuselage set. That is by no means impossible, but the central question is whether it can be done while preserving an aerodynamic efficiency level high enough not to reduce or annul the gains expected from the absence of the fuselage.
There are two well known solutions for the longitudinal trimming of flying wings:
- Usage of wing section airfoil shapes which produce some amount of "nose-up" pitching moment. Usually called "reflex" airfoils, they generally rely on some level of reduced or even reversed aerodynamic loading (i.e. "lifting down") on the trailing edge region to produce the effect of a "built-in tail". Although there are viable designs which fully rely on this kind of solution, like the Fauvel and Marske Aircraft series of sailplanes, the use of such airfoils is generally regarded as not very efficient. The requirement to generate the favorable pitching moment causes impacts such as increased drag and reduced maximum lift, believed by many not to be an advantageous tradeoff for the overall design. On the other hand, there is probably no published work definitely proving those disadvantages based on actual facts and data, for a wide set of application scenarios.
- Adequate "tailoring" of wing planform and spanwise lift distribution shape to produce the required "nose-up" trimming moment. The most usual solution of this kind is to use a backward swept wing with appropriate chord and twist distributions to control the spanwise load. In simple terms, the wing tips may be thought to be working partially as horizontal stabilizers, displaced backwards from the center of gravity by the application of wing sweep. This kind of solution is frequently associated to the use of low or null pitching moment airfoils. Successful aircraft such as the Northrop flying wings and the Horten series of sailplanes and fighters have applied this kind of design solution in the past.
An airfoil (in American English, or aerofoil in British English) is the shape of a wing or blade (of a propeller or ships screw or sail) as seen in cross-section. ...
The pitching moment of an airfoil, in aerodynamics, is a moment produced by a vertical force applied at a distance forward or aft from the aerodynamic center of the airfoil, causing the aircraft to pitch up or down[1]. References ↑ Preston, Ray (2006). ...
An airfoil (in American English, or aerofoil in British English) is the shape of a wing or blade (of a propeller or ships screw or sail) as seen in cross-section. ...
The Northrop Corporation was a leading aircraft manufacturer of the United States. ...
Image:Horten brothers. ...
History The flying wing configuration has been seriously considered by many aircraft designers since the early years of aviation, probably due to its natural appeal as a minimal design solution. Some examples of early flying wing aircraft are the Dunne series of biplane aircraft and Waldo Waterman's Whatsit. Gotha Go 229 V1 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
Gotha Go 229 V1 File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ...
The Horten Ho 229 (often erroneously called Gotha Go 229 due to the identity of the chosen manufacturer of the aircraft) was a late-World War II flying wing fighter aircraft, designed by the Horten brothers and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. ...
Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ...
German soldiers at the Battle of Stalingrad World War II was the most extensive and costly armed conflict in the history of the world, involving the great majority of the worlds nations, being fought simultaneously in several major theatres, and costing tens of millions of lives. ...
Download high resolution version (750x617, 76 KB)B2-Spirit. ...
Download high resolution version (750x617, 76 KB)B2-Spirit. ...
Motto: (traditional) In God We Trust (official, 1956–present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at the federal level; English de facto Government Federal Republic - President George W. Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence - Declared - Recognized...
The B-2 Spirit, made by Northrop Grumman, is an American multi-role stealth bomber able to drop conventional and nuclear weapons. ...
Boeing B-52 strategic bomber taking off A strategic bomber is a large aircraft designed to drop large amounts of ordnance on a distant target for the purposes of debilitating an enemys capacity to wage war. ...
John William Dunne (1866 - 1949) established his career as an aeronautical engineer working on many early military aircraft. ...
Waldo Dean Waterman (June 16, 1894 - December 8, 1976) was an inventor and aviation pioneer from San Diego, California. ...
Whatsit was an swept-wing tail-less, airplane designed by Waldo Waterman between 1911 (when he first got the idea) and 1932 (when the prototype was finally in testing phase). ...
The configuration was studied extensively in the 1930s and 1940s, when it was seen as a natural solution to the problem of building an airliner large enough to carry a reasonable passenger load and enough fuel to cross the Atlantic in regular service. The flying wing's potentially large internal volume and low drag made it "a natural" for this role, and was studied in depth by Jack Northrop in the United States, and Alexander Lippisch and the Horten brothers in Germany, where Hugo Junkers had in 1910 patented a wing-only glider concept. An Airbus A340 airliner operated by Air Jamaica An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft whose primary function is the transportation of paying passengers. ...
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest ocean, covering approximately one-fifth of the Earths surface. ...
John Knudsen Jack Northrop (1895 - 1981) was an American aircraft industrialist. ...
Alexander Lippisch earned his PhD in 1943 at the University of Heidelberg. ...
Image:Horten brothers. ...
Hugo Junkers Hugo Junkers (3 February 1859 - 3 February 1935) was an innovative German engineer, as his many patents in varied areas (gas engines, aeroplanes) show. ...
Junkers started work in 1919 on his "Giant" JG1 design, intended to seat passengers within thick wings, but in 1921 the Allied Aeronautical Commission of Control ordered the incomplete JG1 destroyed for exceeding post-war size limits on German aircraft. Junkers conceived futuristic flying wings for up to 1,000 passengers; the nearest this came to realization was in the 1931 Junkers G-38 34-seater Grossflugzeug airliner, which seated passengers in cabins inside the leading edge of the inboard wing panels. The biggest land plane of its day, and nicknamed 'The Flying Hotel' one G-38 entered service with Lufthansa; it was later put to military use until being destroyed by retreating British troops in Athens in 1941. Japan built multiple G-38s, under license from Junkers, and flew them as bombers. The Junkers G.38 was a large German 4 engined transport airplane of the 1930s. ...
Several late-war German military designs were based on the flying wing concept (or variations of it) as a proposed solution to extend the range of the otherwise very short-range jet engined aircraft. Most famous of these would be the Horten Ho 229 fighter. This aircraft, first flown in 1944, combined not only a flying wing, or Nurflügel, design, but was powered by twin jet engines. The surviving prototype remains in storage with the Smithsonian Institute in an unrestored state. A Pratt and Whitney turbofan engine for the F-15 Eagle is tested at Robins Air Force Base, Georgia, USA. The tunnel behind the engine muffles noise and allows exhaust to escape. ...
The Horten Ho 229 (often erroneously called Gotha Go 229 due to the identity of the chosen manufacturer of the aircraft) was a late-World War II flying wing fighter aircraft, designed by the Horten brothers and built by Gothaer Waggonfabrik. ...
After the war, a number of experimental designs were based on the flying wing concept, but a number of problems arose. Some general interest remained until the early 1950s, when the concept had been proposed as a design solution for long range bombers. Such trends culminated in the Northrop YB-35 and YB-49, which did not enter production. Those designs did not necessarily offer a great advantage in range and presented a number of technical problems, leading to the adoption of "conventional" solutions like the Convair B-36 and the Boeing B-52. A bomber is a military aircraft designed to attack ground targets, primarily by dropping bombs. ...
The Northrop Corporation was a leading aircraft manufacturer of the United States. ...
The Northrop YB-35 (Northrop NS-9) was an experimental heavy bomber aircraft. ...
A YB-49 being flown during a test flight The Northrop YB-49 was a prototype jet-powered flying wing heavy bomber aircraft developed for the United States Air Force shortly after World War II. It was a development of the piston-engined Northrop YB-35, and the two YB...
The Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation, universally known as Convair, was the result of a 1943 merger between Consolidated Aircraft and Vultee Aircraft, resulting in a leading aircraft manufacturer of the United States. ...
The Convair (Consolidated Vultee) B-36 was a strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force, the first to have truly intercontinental range. ...
The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ...
The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range strategic bomber flown by the United States Air Force (USAF) since 1954. ...
Interest in the flying wing configuration was renewed in the 1980s as a way to design aircraft with low radar reflection cross-sections. Stealth technology relies on shapes which only reflect radar waves in certain directions, thus making the aircraft hard to detect unless the radar receiver is at a specific position relative to the aircraft - a position that changes continuously as the aircraft moves. The tailplanes and engine intakes of a conventional jet, and especially its round fuselage, reflect radar in all directions, while the flat and nearly-horizontal surface of a flying wing only reflects radar in a couple of specific directions. In addition, if the edges of the wings are straight rather than curved, then they only reflect radar at angles perpendicular to these straight segments, rather than in all directions. This approach eventually led to the Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. In this case, the aerodynamic advantages of the flying wing are not the primary needs. However, modern computer-controlled fly-by-wire systems allowed for many of the aerodynamic drawbacks of the flying wing to be minimized, making for an efficient and stable long-range bomber. This long range RADAR antenna, known as ALTAIR, is used to detect and track space objects in conjunction with ABM testing at the Ronald Reagan Test Site on the Kwajalein atoll[1]. RADAR is a system that uses radio waves to detect, determine the direction and distance and/or speed...
F-117 Stealth Fighter Stealth technology covers a range of techniques used with aircraft, ships and missiles, in order to make them less visible (ideally invisible) to radar and other detection methods. ...
The B-2 Spirit, made by Northrop Grumman, is an American multi-role stealth bomber able to drop conventional and nuclear weapons. ...
B-2 Spirit stealth bomber. ...
Apparently, the flying wing concept still remains at its best in the slow-to-medium speed range, and there has been continual interest in using it as a tactical airlifter design. Boeing continues to work on paper projects for a Blended Wing Body Lockheed C-130 Hercules sized transport with better range and about 1/3rd more load, while maintaining the same size characteristics. A number of companies, including Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and de Havilland did considerable design work on flying-wing airliners, but to date none have entered production. In logistics and military terminology: An airlift is the act of transporting people or cargo from point to point using aircraft. ...
The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ...
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The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft and the main tactical airlifter for military forces worldwide. ...
The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA, TYO: 7661 ) is an aerospace and defense corporation headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. ...
DC-10, retired from American Airlines fleet at gate McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. ...
Until 1920, Geoffrey de Havillands de Havilland Aircraft Company had been known as Airco, where he was owner and chief designer. ...
An Airbus A340 airliner operated by Air Jamaica An airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft whose primary function is the transportation of paying passengers. ...
See also The experimental Northrop YB-49 bomber of the 1950s The following is a list of flying wing aircraft, along with some information about their roles, successfulness, and country of origin. ...
Baynes Bat The Baynes Bat was a famous prototype military glider of the Second World War, designed by L.E. Baynes. ...
The X-48 is an experimental aircraft currently under development by Boeing and NASA for investigation into the characteristics of Blended Wing Body aircraft, a type of flying wing. ...
Boeing Sonic Cruiser (artists concept) The Boeing Sonic Cruiser was a subsonic concept airplane proposed by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 2001. ...
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is a mid-sized wide body, twin engined passenger airliner currently under development by Boeing and scheduled to enter service in 2008. ...
The Northrop N-9M was a one-third scale development aircraft for the Northrop B-35 flying wing bomber. ...
Oblique wing An Oblique wing is a variable geometry wing concept. ...
Image of Switchblade in oblique position by John MacNeill Image of Switchblade in conventional position by John MacNeill The Switchblade is a proposed unmanned aerial vehicle being developed by Northrop Grumman for the United States. ...
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