
Future Airplanes Will Fly on Twistable Wings - prostoalex
http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/future-airplanes-will-fly-on-twistable-wings
======
jacquesm
Full circle to the Wright Flyer then:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_Flyer)

~~~
hodgesrm
Don't forget birds! They have the first known wing-warping design. :)

------
mabbo
Always a bit careful when reading an article written by a researcher who is
very excited about his own innovations. I take the optimism with a grain of
salt.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Same; as I was reading it and the author started talking about himself working
on it I had a bunch of red flags smack me in the face. Sure, be excited about
your stuff and it may be completely legit but when someone publishes about
their own work outside of a research paper that includes data it makes me
think they're fund raising and trying to sell me on all of the extreme
possibilities.

------
velodrome
F/A-18 Active Aeroelastic Wing [2006]:

[https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-06...](https://www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-061-DFRC.html)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic_Wing)

------
JoeAltmaier
I was following a giant wind generator blade down the highway on a windy day.
Seen from the back (following the rig) I saw the thing twisting and bobbing
constantly. Its like it was made of rubber!

Not an airplane wing, I know, but similar.

~~~
jacquesm
Anything when made long enough will flex like that. Imagine that those blades
are made of carbon fiber, resin and are designed for maximum stiffness!

Fortunately the loading of those blades is relatively constant, the majority
of the load will come at a 90 degree angle to the plane of rotation, the angle
at which the leading edge hits the apparent (not the real) wind. That apparent
wind has a speed that is a fairly large multiple (7 or so) of the speed of the
real wind and the 'flex' that you observe is almost all at right angles to
that wind.

In other words: those blades are floppy in the direction where they can afford
to be floppy, but extremely stiff along the axis where their main load is. If
they wouldn't be the tips would lag behind the hub and they definitely do not
do that in any significant amount.

Another good reason to make the blades a bit flexible in their long axis
parallel to the tower is that this allows the blades to deal better with tower
thump. A blade rigid in that dimension would cause a much sharper rise of the
pressure wave of air trapped between the blade and the tower, and this results
in a blade that will live that much longer (and a machine that runs quieter).

That is also the reason for the angle at which the nacelle is set, this
creates a bit more room at the bottom where the blade flex is at its maximum,
it also helps to offset wind-shear.

~~~
Gravityloss
Also, the shapes are nowadays pre-bent in the opposite direction, so they get
more optimal when they are loaded. You can do many things in a wind turbine
that would be dangerous in an aircraft.

------
nether
Like blended wing body configurations, propfan propulsion, "smart" materials
with embedded sensors, this is an aerospace technology that has merit and has
been studied for decades. It is not any closer to implementation in any
commercial aircraft because existing designs work well enough and are far less
risky to analyze and test.

------
jlebrech
what about flapping for thrust next?

~~~
miend
I'm ready for ornithopters if you are. And then heighliners.

------
dvh
Holy fuck, that site displays full page ad on top of the page and when you
scroll down, it scrolls back up. After certain time you can scroll down.

~~~
agumonkey
Let me improve your life a little
[http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url=http...](http://www.printfriendly.com/print/?source=homepage&url=http%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Faerospace%2Faviation%2Ffuture-
airplanes-will-fly-on-twistable-wings)

~~~
ed312
Or a little more still: [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpa...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-
origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm)

~~~
Raphmedia
What about mobile?

~~~
lorenzhs
Firefox for Android allows extensions, you can use
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-
origin...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/ublock-origin/)

If your phone is a rooted Android, you can also use a hostfile that blacklists
many ad servers, such as [https://adaway.org/](https://adaway.org/)

On iOS, "Content Blockers" for Safari can be used for ad blocking, and there
is plenty of choice in the App Store.

