The shape of wings to come !

Here is an article I came across today on the next era of aircraft coming down the tarmack.

New technology could provide the ability to make aircraft wings flex and bend to mimick a bird in flight.

Have you ever watched a duck cruise in for a landing over water, tail and wings curved down, and just before landing the duck opens it's wings like an air brake. If this wing shifting works out, it will re-write how aircraft operate.

A new design-approach based on smart materials and actuators could turn shape-shifting from a dream into the hottest aeronautical essential since Frank Whittle’s jet engine. The result would be planes with wings that grow, bend and shrink on command, morphing into the best shape for the task in hand.

www.newscientist.com...

An interview with DARPA’s Terry Weisshaar
The next 100 years of flight - part two

Today, Terry Weisshaar, manager of DARPA's morphing aircraft structures programme at the Pentagon explains how telescoping and folding wings will help future planes to tailor their wing shape and size for each part of a mission.

"Sliding skins" could morph a plane from fast, attack configuration (left) to a slower long distance shape.

www.newscientist.com...

Lockheed Martin believe folding wings are a more efficient way to morph an aircraft.

www.newscientist.com...

Again, I have to point out how far ahead of his time Dale Brown was. Go read Day of the Cheetah. The experimental fighter, Dreamstar, had "mission adaptive" wings as well as a thought controlled system like the Firefox of Clint Eastwood fame. Cool stuff and it was published in 1989. I believe the idea of adaptive wings has been addressed on and off for the last few decades.

My paper plane that flew when I was 5 years old. ahem the very last one