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Man, that's a beautiful plane. I wonder why flying wing designs haven't been more prevalent. I mean, there've been a few, but not a whole lot.
by DannoHung 17y ago
Man, that's a beautiful plane. I wonder why flying wing designs haven't been more prevalent. I mean, there've been a few, but not a whole lot.
- jgrahamc 17y agoWell, for passenger aircraft they haven't been prevalent because you'd be uncomfortable sitting at the extremities where the wings move up and down a lot. And then there's the problem of yaw control.
- timtrueman 17y agoAlso pressurizing an aircraft that isn't a tube can be tricky and evacuation/safety concerns are a messy issue. It will be a while before you'll see manned aircraft in that style.
- mrduncan 17y agoAccording to Wikipedia: The expected gains in weight and drag reduction may be partially or wholly negated due to design compromises needed to provide stability and control. Alternatively, and more commonly, a flying wing type may suffer from stability and control problems. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_wing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_wing
- DannoHung 17y agoNow that Thrust Vectoring (OWNS THE SKIES! THIS THING TURNS ON A DIME, MACROSS ZERO STYLE!) is more common we should see an upsurge in new aircraft designs that are of a flying wing style then, right?
- raquo 17y agoWell, sort of. They're now called "Blended wing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_wing
- russell 17y agoThe original story is here with a lot more detail: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090625-hitlers-stealth-fighter-plane.html http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/06/090625-hitle... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_YB-49 goes into some of the performance and stability issues of the early flying wings. I suspect that a wooden flying wing at 600 mph would have been uncontrollable or subject to airframe failure.
- electromagnetic 17y agoI suspect a large wooden flying wing would have been subject to warping unlike most WW2 planes, which would produce unpredictable behaviour. When your entire plane is a wing, you don't want it changing shape in mid-flight. We're not birds, I doubt many human pilots would be able to intuitively control a plane that changes shape and flight profile during turns.