Morphing a wing to save fuel.Airplanes of the future might change the shape of their wings as they fly. A Michigan-based company called FlexSys has created shape-shifting wings that recently performed well in flight tests. And these special wings do more than just look cool. The tests found that aircraft with morphing Transforming one image into another; for example, a car into a tiger. The term comes from metamorphosis. Morphing programs work by marking prominent points, such as tips and corners, of the before and after images. wings are likely to use less fuel than do traditional airplane designs. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "This is something that the aerospace community has been after for a long time, "says aerospace engineer Peter M. Flick of the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, U.S. military installation, 8,023 acres (3,247 hectares), W Ohio, NE of Dayton; est. 1917. One of the largest airport installations in the world, it is the air force's main research and development base, and the headquarters of the near Dayton, Ohio Dayton is a city in southwestern Ohio, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Montgomery County. As of the 2005 census estimate, the population of Dayton was 158,873. . Flick heads the program that's funding the wing's development. Some military jets, such as the F-111, already have wings that can change shape. The old technology, however, is bulky, heavy, and impractical for wide use. FlexSys, instead, decided to put a specially designed network made of aluminum inside its wings. Aluminum is a lightweight metal. Inside the wing, the metal network bends in response to forces exerted by a simple system of motors and rods. This causes the wing's edge to curve smoothly either up or down. During tests inside wind tunnels wind tunnel, apparatus for studying the interaction between a solid body and an airstream. A wind tunnel simulates the conditions of an aircraft in flight by causing a high-speed stream of air to flow past a model of the aircraft (or part of an aircraft) being tested. last spring, the new wings stood up to forces that were three times as strong as those that airplanes normally experience in flight. In the just-completed flight tests, a jet called the White Knight White Knight falls off his horse every time it stops. [Br. Lit.: Lewis Carroll Through the Looking-Glass] See : Awkwardness White Knight invents clever objects that never work. [Br. Lit. took a test wing up to altitudes between 8,000 meters (26,300 feet) and 12,000 meters (39,400 feet). The White Knight previously helped launch the first manned, privately built vehicle into outer space (see "Reach for the Sky"). Once up there, the wing's edge flexed as sensors measured how aerodynamic, or streamlined, it was in various positions. Researchers expect the flexible wings to be useful in spy planes. These robotic planes often hover An option in Microsoft Internet Explorer that removes the permanent underline from hypertext links. The underline displays automatically and only when the cursor is placed over (hovers over) the link. Hover is available in Tools/Internet Options/Advanced/Underline links. for long periods of time at very high altitudes Conventionally, an altitude above 10,000 meters (33,000 feet). See also altitude. , and they burn a lot of fuel as they sit there. As an aircraft's fuel is used up, the airplane loses weight, and that changes how aerodynamic the vehicle is. By changing the shape of its wings, a stealth spy plane could reduce drag, save fuel, and stay in flight longer. Commercial airplane companies have also expressed interest in the technology. Someday, your view of the wing from a window seat might be just as action-packed as the in-flight movie.--E. Sohn |
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