Northrops reveals OFW concept

Northrop Grumman has released renderings of there DARPA funded Oblique Flying Wing, phase one will end in November 2007. It will become an X-Plane, with its first flight expected to be in 2010-11.

from the link
The supersonic design envisioned by the OFW program offers potential benefits for missions requiring rapid deployment, long range and long endurance. In theory, an oblique flying wing could maximize its performance in every flight regime: takeoff or landing, high or low altitude, supersonic or subsonic speed.

Northrop Grumman Selected to Design First-Ever Supersonic Oblique Flying Wing

I like this concept, and if the X-Plane is successfull, then theres no doubt in my mind that this type of aircraft will deffiniatly go into production.....Who wouldn't want a unmanned craft that has global hawk like endurance, but with mach 2+ speeds.

Murcielago,

1. Boundary flow and shock separation along the obverse side of a wing whose taper ratio must be optimized for flying through the air with equal stiffness, edge or tipside into the flow.

2. A uniform chord distribution of thickness with NO camber change on either TE and LE surfaces (you will get wild roll and yaw moments). Further complicating the distribution of pressure vs. stiffness problem as airflow essentially comes across the spanwise cutouts for the C-surfaces. i.e. You want not only an oblique wing but a mission adaptive 'shape changer' one.

3. Landing with next to no separation of lift from pitch moment on a VERY short couple. You roll LE up to 'flare' and the wing, with next to no drag is going to say 'You wanna fly? Let's fly!' Something which perhaps spoiler slot deflectors or tipervators can help with. But only at the expense of yet more spanwise weight distribution and systems complexity problems.


CONCLUSION:
Our armed forces don't really /care/ how DARPA wastes money. So long as it's 'just experimental'. The INSTANT that they come up with something /militarilty useful/ (i.e. a threat to manned aviation) they will stomp on it. Or change it's mission beyond all recognition and then say it can't perform it. Or simply kidnap it and then starve it to death.

Since the GHawk itself is barely a functional replacement for the U-2 (looking at inventory numbers) and the J-UCAS was destroyed as a truly capable /tactical/ platform; it stands to reason that this is just another Vapor Ware 'Popular Science' type machine that is making someone rich writing a doctoral paper that begin and ends with "We couldn't make it work /this time/ but with continued research in the following areas..."


KPl.

yeah, no doubt theres several hurdles to overcome, I would think keeping it from tumbling end over end would be a pretty tuff one. But I think they will iron out the kinks.

Heres the Oblique Flying Wing past - present - & future.

wow Merc cheers for the piccies! (Even if they are drawings they are still cool!)

My thoughts about a craft like this is such: Why not have a rhomboid shaped wing area ( like a pumpkin seed ) and have the engines actually do the moving through a 90 degrees arc to make it either a wide spanned slow moving craft, or a long thin supersonic lifting body? Now that idea i would love to see developed...!

Wasnt the AD-1 based on a nazi project?

Greebo, by moving engines do you mean like this 1961 project from Handley Page?

Of course HP weren't the first to come up with oblique wings as a concept, there were a couple of German proposals in WW2 but the Ames AD-1 of 1979 was the first aircraft ever to fly the layout successfully.

Wasnt the AD-1 based on a nazi project?

Not at all browno. The AD-1 was actually intended to represent a scale model of a slew wing SST 'of the future', which is evident when you look at its design.




[edit on 27-3-2006 by waynos]

Very cool pics.

I did , however have one overriding thought, why a jet pod under the wing.

Why not design it like the B-2, a much more arodynamic design?

cool pic Waynos...That would be a plane I would like to ride in...front row baby!

mrmonsoon - I would assume money...much easier to have the engine turn, and if it was built in it wouild be more complex...and cost more. I'm sure if it goes operational it would be built in for sealth reasons...but theres no need to incorporate all that in to the X-Plane, that would only drive its costs up, and would likely be scrapped before it gets off the ground.

[edit on 27-3-2006 by Murcielago]

Because the engines always have to maintain a thrust line opposite to the direction of travel, you can't have them blasting to one side when the wing angle angle changes. It wouldn't be impossible to do this with them mounted internally but it would be a heavy system, having to manually push the engines round to the right angle, in conjunction with the changing wing sweep angle, without the benefit of air flow around an aerodynamic, almost fin like, pylon and you would waste a lot of internal volume because you would have to leave somewhere for the engines to move to. With external engines this volume can be used for fuel.

Cheers murcielago, it is a whacky concept all right, I've had that picture for absolutely ages but I didn't have the info needed to make a thread about it, this thread gave me the perfect excuse to get it up here at last

[edit on 27-3-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by Browno
Wasnt the AD-1 based on a nazi project?

Vaguely sorta.







[edit on 27-3-2006 by Orionblamblam]

Thinking about my last reply where I pointed out the reasons why internal engines are a no-no, I just realised, you could used F-22 style 2d vectoring, but turned on its side instead, then the engines wouldn't have to move. Wooo, I'm a genius

Originally posted by waynos
you could used F-22 style 2d vectoring, but turned on its side instead, then the engines wouldn't have to move.

Problems:

1) The inlet remains an issue.

2) Vectoring thrust is hard on structures. In general you really don't want to put stuff in the way of hot supersonic gasses. Not only thermal issues, but also structural *and* substantial performance losses.

The F-22 gets away with vectoring because it's a transitory action. An OAW aircraft using this to turn exhaust by 45 or more degrees for many minutes at a strtetch would be in serious trouble.

I can't see how an OFW would require afterburners, supercruise should be sufficient, also, maybe the engines could be placed so that the thrust is not deflected at high power settings? This would require the deflection to be used during take off/landing and low speed cruise but a pure straight wing would not require a lot of thrust to get airborne so stresses might be kept low?

Also, inlets wouldn't be much of a problem I reckon as most modern intakes are designed to function at extreme AoA's and anyhow, solving problems like these is what designers get paid megabucks for

[edit on 27-3-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
I can't see how an OFW would require afterburners, supercruise should be sufficient, also, maybe the engines could be placed so that the thrust is not deflected at high power settings?

Hard to see it. It would need high power settings on takeoff (while a high L/D wing would not *need* high power for takeoff, it'd still *needc* it in the event of mishaps on takeoff), and it would need high power settings at supersonic.

Originally posted by waynosAlso, inlets wouldn't be much of a problem I reckon as most modern intakes are designed to function at extreme AoA's

Not very efficiently, though.

Originally posted by waynosand anyhow, solving problems like these is what designers get paid megabucks for

True. but then... I'd point out that these megabuk designers have concluded that separate engine pods are the way to go...a t least so far.

Yes, and if you read my first post on the engines aspect you will see I spelled out some reasons why it is the best choice. Here I was only postulating how internals might be done.

This proves what I've always known, Northrop is truely on the cutting edge of advanced technology. A variable sweep flying wing, I would never have thought of such a thing. I bet they are for supersonic flight. If this is what they are working on publicly, just imagion what they might be building over at the Owl Works, Black Project Center. (For thoes of you not familiar with the Owl Works, It the Northrop equivilent of the Lockheed Skunk Works).

Tim

Originally posted by ghost
This proves what I've always known, Northrop is truely on the cutting edge of advanced technology.

True. Too bad the cutting edge hasn't moved since 1961, when Handley Page designed the "Sycamore" variable-geometry supersonic flying wing transport.

Originally posted by ch1466
Or simply kidnap it and then starve it to death.

Hehehehehe :-) as they usually do... ;-)