Swing wings: old hat now?
Discussion
A swinging wing is a solution to the "be able to go both slow, and fast with the same plane" problem. Materials technology (like composite structures) has enabled thinner section wings (lower drag), with CFD resulting in a better LD characteristic, especially at higher AOA, meaning that modern jet fighters can manage with a fixed wing planiform. Also, i suspect that just "going very fast" is less of an issue in modern fighter/small bomber design, where Stealth and missile advances has made just outrunning your oponent a null game. Add in more efficient engines and multi axis stabilised flight controls (maybe with thrust vectoring too) and the low speed performance of current planes relies less on pure wing lift. Finally, swinging wings makes weapons fit a bit of a 'mare (swiveling missile rails etc) and results in a fusilage that must support a significant point loading (at the pivot) When you start to put ultimate maneouverablity above pure speed (you can't out run an anti-aircraft missile these days (well, maybe unless you're M3.0+ ;-) so it's better to have an airframe that can tollerate higher loading (more G), not something that a pivoting wing helps with.
Max_Torque said:
A swinging wing is a solution to the "be able to go both slow, and fast with the same plane" problem. Materials technology (like composite structures) has enabled thinner section wings (lower drag), with CFD resulting in a better LD characteristic, especially at higher AOA, meaning that modern jet fighters can manage with a fixed wing planiform. Also, i suspect that just "going very fast" is less of an issue in modern fighter/small bomber design, where Stealth and missile advances has made just outrunning your oponent a null game. Add in more efficient engines and multi axis stabilised flight controls (maybe with thrust vectoring too) and the low speed performance of current planes relies less on pure wing lift. Finally, swinging wings makes weapons fit a bit of a 'mare (swiveling missile rails etc) and results in a fusilage that must support a significant point loading (at the pivot) When you start to put ultimate maneouverablity above pure speed (you can't out run an anti-aircraft missile these days (well, maybe unless you're M3.0+ ;-) so it's better to have an airframe that can tollerate higher loading (more G), not something that a pivoting wing helps with.
What he said, and my money would AAW technology being the next big thing as the technology potentially offers manifold benefits in terms of manoeuvrability, weight savings, and drag.e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Aeroelastic_Wi...
Hmm, not entirely convinced. Surely modern wing technology can be applied to swing wings too? That would mean greater payloads on take-off with the wings forward and still retain high speed with the wings back if needed. As for positioning the weapons, well that was sorted back in the 1970s so clearly not a problem.
LotusOmega375D said:
Hmm, not entirely convinced. Surely modern wing technology can be applied to swing wings too? That would mean greater payloads on take-off with the wings forward and still retain high speed with the wings back if needed. As for positioning the weapons, well that was sorted back in the 1970s so clearly not a problem.
Aerodynamics has moved on a lot since then - one of the main reasons for it was that it was the best solution at the time to find a way of making a plane capable of doing fast and slow, and high and low.What we have now is a better understanding of how the air works on the wings, and much more efficient engines, so they can bin the tonnes of complicated swing wing mechanisms and go with a simpler design.
Yes - swing wings always impose a severe weight penalty. It was this which scuppered the US's plans to build a swing-wing supersonic aiirliner.
Today, it would be possible to use lighter materials in swing-wing designs - but as has been pointed out, there are other more elegant and smarter way to achieve the atribuites once only achievable with swing-wings.
Today, it would be possible to use lighter materials in swing-wing designs - but as has been pointed out, there are other more elegant and smarter way to achieve the atribuites once only achievable with swing-wings.
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