NASA technology to fold airplane wings in flight - video

[Jon]

NASA technology to fold airplane wings in flight. 3:10 video:

More: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-to...aft-efficiency


Previously:

Pivoting wing NASA airplane - GIF and video
wing snaps off plane, whole-plane parachute deploys safely
1950s fighter jet bomber wingtip coupling experiments - photo and video
Riout 102T Alérion Ornithopter flapping wing airplane - photo

[Drew1966]

To those amongst us who understand aerogaddammics better than I do, what is the advantage of a folding wing of this type?

[Crusty]

More optimized for high speed flight, plus the way that they fold them up stops the vortex flow off the top wing surfaces which reduces the induced drag, so more efficient that way too. It's what the winglets that you see on most modern planes do. When the wings are straight out that's better for low speed flight like landings and takeoffs.

[Frank S]

And I remember when a big radio controlled model airplane had a wing span of a couple of feet. now the Navy has bloody drones larger than a jet fighter and cost nearly as much.
The video didn't show their collection of data but knowing NASA they had a gymnasium sized room full of people collecting data from a 1000 sensors and dozens of cameras. After all there is no use in constructing a multi million dollar model air plane just to watch it fly around in circles if the data cannot be implemented into real world applications. they can share this data with commercial airplane manufactures for enhanced flight system safeties and to create more efficient air craft lord knows Boeing could use come help just now,

[Boris99]

This technology was also tested in the late 50's- early 60's with the North American XB-70 Valkyrie

[Frank S]

This technology was also tested in the late 50's- early 60's with the North American XB-70 Valkyrie

I have little doubt that some of the so called UFOs that do impossible maneuvers for a human to survive could have been done by those early RCAs

[Ralphxyz]

This research lead to the wing tip configuration of the Boeing MAX 737.

Ralph