A Variable-sweep wing (or swing-wing) is an airplane wing that may be swept back and then returned to its original position during flight. The Bell X-5 was the first aircraft capable of changing the sweep of its wings in flight Overview Fixed-wing aircraft range from small training and recreational aircraft to Wide-body aircraft and military cargo aircraft. WING "ESPN 1410" is a commercial AM radio station in Dayton Ohio operating with 5000 watts at 1410 kHz with studios offices and transmitter located on David It allows the aircraft's planform to be modified in flight, and is therefore an example of variable geometry. A planform or Plan view is a vertical Orthographic projection of an object on a horizontal plane like a Map.
Typically, a swept wing is more suitable for high speeds, while an unswept wing is suitable for lower speeds (such as when taking off and landing). A swept-wing is a wing Planform common on high-speed Aircraft, with the wing swept back instead of being set at right angles to the Fuselage. A swing-wing allows a pilot to select the correct wing configuration for the plane's intended speed. The swing-wing is most useful for those aircraft that are expected to function at both low and high speed, and for this reason it has been used primarily in military aircraft. A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing Aircraft that is in the current employ of a Military power
The added mass and complexity required to design a plane with a swing-wing somewhat offset the benefits. As a result, swing-wings have not seen widespread adoption.
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History of development
Swing-wing aircraft developed from earlier experimental aircraft that were built to study the effects of a simple swept wing. The first of these was the Messerschmitt Me P.1101 whose sweep angle could be changed on the ground. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout A number of test flights were carried out at various angles to determine the trade offs.
At the end of World War II the P. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including 1101 was taken to the United States for further study at Bell Aircraft, where versions were built that could vary their wing angle in flight. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The Bell Aircraft Corporation was an Aircraft manufacturer of the United States, a builder of several types of Fighter aircraft for World War One problem discovered while testing the Bell X-5 was that as the wing pivoted rearward, the center of lift also moved to the rear, pushing the nose down. The Bell X-5 was the first aircraft capable of changing the sweep of its wings in flight A system to compensate for this basic effect had to be added for any such design to be viable.
Immediately post war Barnes Wallis had started work on variable geometry to maximise the economy of supersonic flight. Sir Barnes Neville Wallis, CBE, Kt, FRS, RDI, FRAeS ( 26 September 1887 &ndash 30 October Initial work was on the military "Wild Goose" project, then he went onto the "Vickers Swallow", intended to achieve a return flight from Europe to Australia in 10 hours. It had a blended wing tailless design and he successfully tested several models including a six foot scale model at speeds of up to Mach 2 in the 1950s but government backing was withdrawn. Blended Wing Body, or BWB designates an alternative airframe design which incorporates design features from both a traditional tube and wing design into a hybrid Flying wing Wallis and his team presented their work to the Americans seeking a grant to continue their studies but none was forthcoming. [1] In 1949, L E Baynes, an aeronautical engineer and designer of the Baynes Bat, patented a design for a supersonic swing wing fighter but the design was not built. The Baynes Bat was a famous experimental glider of the Second World War, designed by L
A swing-wing was tried on the Grumman F10F Jaguar in 1952. The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a leading 20th century U WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout This is a list of Aviation -related events from 1952: Events January January 5 - Pan Am commences trans-atlantic The XF10F never entered service; it possessed extremely poor flying characteristics and rather vicious spin tendencies. The idea was again revived in the early 1960s as a way to reconcile ever-growing aircraft weights (and thus wing loading) with the need to provide reasonable takeoff and landing performance. The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 In Aerodynamics, wing loading is the loaded weight of the aircraft divided by the area of the wing Takeoff is the phase of Flight in which an Aircraft goes through a transition from moving along the ground ( Taxiing) to flying in the air usually Landing is the last part of a Flight, where a flying Animal, Aircraft, or Spacecraft returns to the ground The United States adopted this configuration for the TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental) program, which emerged as the General Dynamics F-111, the first production swing-wing aircraft. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout
Similar requirements in the Soviet Union also led TsAGI, the Soviet aerodynamics bureau, to explore the possibilities of variable geometry. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 TsAGI is a transliteration of the Russian abbreviation for Центра́льный аэрогидродинами́ческий институ́т ( ЦАГИ) or " Ts TsAGI evolved two distinct planforms, differing mainly in the distance (expressed as a percentage of total wingspan) between the wing pivots. A planform or Plan view is a vertical Orthographic projection of an object on a horizontal plane like a Map. The wingspan (or just span) of an airplane or a Bird, is the distance from the left wingtip to the right wingtip A wider spacing not only reduced the negative aerodynamic effects of changing wing sweep, but also provided a larger fixed wing section which could be used for landing gear or stores pylons. In Aviation, the undercarriage or landing gear is the structure (usually wheels that supports an Aircraft on the ground and allows it to taxi This could, in fact, be adapted to more-or-less existing airframes, which the Soviets soon did, with the Sukhoi Su-17 (based on the earlier swept wing Sukhoi Su-7) and the Tupolev Tu-22M (based on the Tupolev Tu-22). WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout A swept-wing is a wing Planform common on high-speed Aircraft, with the wing swept back instead of being set at right angles to the Fuselage. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The limitation of the wide spacing, however, was that it reduced the benefits of variable geometry as much as it reduced their technical difficulties. For the new, "clean-sheet" Soviet designs, TsAGI devised a more narrowly spaced arrangement similar to that of the F-111. This design was used (albeit at different scales) for the MiG-23 fighter and the Sukhoi Su-24 interdictor, which flew in prototype forms at the end of the 1960s, entering service in the early 1970s. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout The 1960s decade refers to the years from the beginning of 1960 to the end of 1969 This article is about the Decade 1970-1979 For the Year 1970 see 1970.
In the aftermath of the cancellation of the TSR-2, the British had started a project with the French for the Anglo-French Variable Geometry aircraft (AFVG). WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout When French commitment was curtailed the British sought a second partner in the F104 Consortium of European nations. This in turn led to the European consortium that adopted variable geometry for the Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MRCA) project that emerged as the Panavia Tornado. A multirole (or multi-role) combat Aircraft is an aircraft that can be used as both a Fighter aircraft and a Ground attack aircraft WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout [2] This was an interdictor and stand-off interceptor similar in function to the F-111, albeit on a smaller scale. Meanwhile, the U.S. Navy arranged to replace the canceled F-111B fleet interceptor with the Grumman F-14 Tomcat. Swing-wings were seen as a way to reconcile the low landing speeds necessary for carrier fighters with the fighter's role as a high-speed interceptor. As a side effect, though maneuverability was not a design aim, the F-14 was remarkably agile, despite its underpowered engines. It was far more maneuverable than the F-111, the Tornado, or any of the Soviet swing-wing aircraft due to lower effective wing loading (thanks to a 'pancake' fuselage that provided additional lift) and an automatic wing sweep. In Aerodynamics, wing loading is the loaded weight of the aircraft divided by the area of the wing Rockwell, meanwhile, adopted variable geometry for the Advanced Manned Strategic Bomber (AMSA) program that produced the B-1 Lancer bomber, intended to provide an optimum combination of high-speed cruising efficiency and fast, supersonic penetration speeds at extremely low level. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout For other uses see Supersonic. The term supersonic is used to define a speed that is over the Speed of sound ( Mach 1 The last swing-wing military aircraft to date was the Soviet Tupolev Tu-160 "Blackjack", which first flew in 1980. A soviet (сове́т, "council" originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft. Please see WikipediaWikiProject Aircraft/page content for recommended layout This is a list of Aviation -related events from 1980: Events January January 8 - a Mooney 231 lands in
A swing-wing was also used by Boeing's entry in the FAA's study for a supersonic transport, the 2707. The Boeing Company is a major Aerospace and defense corporation originally founded by William E The Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA) is an agency of the United States Department of Transportation with authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of A supersonic transport (SST is a civil Aircraft designed to transport passengers at speeds greater than the Speed of sound. The Boeing 2707 was developed as the first American Supersonic transport (SST However during the design stage it became clear that the mechanism was so large that it would leave almost no room in the cabin for seats. The design was later abandoned in favor of a more conventional delta wing. The delta wing is a Wing Planform in the form of a triangle named after the Greek uppercase delta which is a triangle (Δ
While variable-sweep provides many advantages, particularly in takeoff distance, load-carrying ability, and the fast, low-level penetration role, swing wings impose a considerable penalty in weight and complexity. The advent of relaxed stability flight control systems in the 1970s negated many of the disadvantages of a fixed platform, and no new swing-wing aircraft have been built since the Tu-160. In aviation relaxed stability is the tendency of an aircraft to change its attitude and angle of bank on its own accord
Variable-sweep aircraft
Experimental
Production
- B-1 Lancer
- EF-111A Raven
- F-14 Tomcat
- General Dynamics F-111
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-23
- Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-27
- Panavia Tornado
- Panavia Tornado ADV
- Sukhoi Su-17
- Sukhoi Su-24
- Tupolev Tu-22M
- Tupolev Tu-160
See also
References
- ^ The Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust
- ^ Buttler, Tony British Secret Projects: Jet Bombers Since 1949
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