Oblique wings are comming

A few of the big players are getting close to the EMD stage of these. BTW they are unmanned.....but what isn't these days. I feel these are one of the more interesting designs that we will see in the future.

www.dtic.mil...

aero.stanford.edu...

www.flightinternatio... nal.co.uk

www.strange-mecha.com...

www.dtic.mil...

Mod Edit: Truncated Link Of Great Length.

[edit on 10/11/2005 by Mirthful Me]

Oblique wings were proposed on a fighter design in Germany during the second world war and after the war Handley Page in the UK designed an oblique wing supersonic airliner. NASA even flew an oblique wing demonstrator as far back as 1979 but clearly none of these proposals ever led to a practical aircraft. It is nevertheless interesting to see these new designs on this old theme.

This fighter design from WW2 was Blohm and Voss BV P.202.
www.hitechweb.szm.sk...

What are the benefits of oblique wings off hand ?

Originally posted by bmdefiant
What are the benefits of oblique wings off hand ?

Optimal profile of the wing during all speeds. At low speed, it has 0 degrees swept and produces high lift. During supersonic cruise it can move to bigger swept and has lower drag.

Engineers often use variable swept wing instead with symmetrical moving wing parts, because then you can use less sophisticated flight system. But as is technology progressing, now it is not big problem and obliqe wing designs returned. You need much complicated flight control system, but oblique wing can be much massive and damage-resistant than standard variable swept wing.

Thanks for that...Does the wing have different problems when trying to break through the sound barrier..ie one wing swept back and the other swept forward ? Dont know much about how swept forward wings take to supersonic cruise but i presume it must be possible.
Funny how all these future technologies re aviation seem to have been experimented by the Germans to sum degree during the Second World War.

Its wierd to look at. Usualy with aircraft and other machines that require high airodynamics we see symetrics as the first and last thing to be considered.

This sideways bent over backward kinda craft just looks wrong.

It will be interesting to see how they get around the cabin pressurization problems. One of the reasons for the traditional design of airliners is that a cylindrical shape is one of the simplest and strongest vessels to pressurize. If you try to bury a cylinder in the wing design it will lead to a very thick wing chord and a lot of useless space.

I have seen a diagram of a pressurised cabin for the inside of a flying wing design and it wasn't cylindrical, which would result in a lot of wasted space, but was instead quilted in appearance with the 'domed' upper sections providing strength and allowing maximum uyse of the internal space.

regarding the properties of a slew wing, It is claimed to provide all the aerodynamic benefits of a Swing wing such as high speed cruise and low landing speeds etc but without the weighty and complex wing sweep mechanism.

Speaking also of symmetry I remember another German design which was a slew wing biplane jet fighter in which slew wings were attached to the top and bottom of the fuselage which formed a perfect biplane layout when unswepr but which then slewed in opposite directions forming an X shape in plan view, now that was odd.

Here's one of the earlier concepts...

The AD-1 circa 1979 - 1982 was built for NASA by Ames Industrial and was one of the few manned oblique wing efforts.
It was was 38.8 feet long and 6.75 feet high with a wing span of 32.3 feet, weighed 1,450 pounds, was powered by two small turbojet engines, each producing 220 pounds of thrust and due to safety concerns, the aircraft was limited to speeds of 170 mph.

Here's a NASA movie file on it:

AD-1 Oblique Wing Movie

The OFW is certianly an interesting concept.

Northrop (as far as I know) is the only company to release a rendering of what theres will look like.


But dont expect to see it operational before 2020.

It will likely become a new X-Plane designation...which is good...since there hasn't been any for awhile.

The last x-plane that I can think of was Boeings X-50...Not sure what happened to that thing...Although I think its purpose is now lost.

anywho.....The thing I cant figure out is how the switchblade will fly...It has to be stealthy...so that means the engine will be burried in the craft...the much easier method would be have a engine pod above the craft, which could rotate 90 degrees. But ya cant have that if you want stealth...So its likely it would have to be thrust vectoring...but when you vector your thrust you loose power, which isn't at all what you want when switching to go supersonic.
Anyone have the answer i'm looking for?