Wing warping
Encyclopedia
Wright brothers
The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur , were two Americans credited with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight, on December 17, 1903...
, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite directions. In many respects, this approach is similar to that used to trim the performance of a paper airplane by curling the paper at the back of its wings.
Description
In practice, since most wing warping designs involved flexing of structural members they were difficult to control and liable to cause structural failure. AileronAileron
Ailerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll, which results in a change in heading due to the tilting of the lift vector...
s had begun to replace wing warping as the most common means of achieving lateral control as early as 1911, especially in biplane
Biplane
A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two superimposed main wings. The Wright brothers' Wright Flyer used a biplane design, as did most aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a biplane wing structure has a structural advantage, it produces more drag than a similar monoplane wing...
designs. Monoplane
Monoplane
A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with one main set of wing surfaces, in contrast to a biplane or triplane. Since the late 1930s it has been the most common form for a fixed wing aircraft.-Types of monoplane:...
wings of the period were much more flexible, and proved more amenable to wing warping - but even for monoplane designs, ailerons became the norm after 1915.
Lateral (roll) control in early aircraft was problematic at best. An overly flexible, involuntarily twisting wing can cause involuntary rolling, but even worse, it can convert attempts at correction, either from wing warping or ailerons, into a counteracting "tab" effect. Once this was fully understood wing structures were made progressively more rigid, precluding wing warping altogether - and aircraft became far more controllable in the lateral plane.
Applications
Wing warping was a common feature of early aircraft, including:- The Wright FlyerWright FlyerThe Wright Flyer was the first powered aircraft, designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903 near the Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, U.S.The U.S...
(1903) - The Blériot XIBlériot XIThe Blériot XI is the aircraft in which, on 25 July 1909, Louis Blériot made the first flight across the English Channel made in a heavier-than-air aircraft . This achievement is one of the most famous accomplishments of the early years of aviation, and not only won Blériot a lasting place in...
(1909) following modifications introduced by Raymond Saulnier - The Rumpler TaubeRumpler TaubeThe Etrich Taube, also known by the names of the various manufacturers who build versions of the type, such as the Rumpler Taube, was a pre-World War I monoplane aircraft. It was the first mass-produced military plane in Germany...
(1910), the first mass produced military plane in Germany - The Morane-Saulnier N (1915), a World War I French scoutScout (aircraft)The term scout, as a description of a class of military aircraft, came into use shortly before the First World War, and referred to a light reconnaissance aircraft, initially unarmed. "Scout" types were generally adaptations of pre-war racing aircraft – although at least one was specifically...
- The Fokker EindeckerFokker EindeckerThe Fokker Eindecker was a German World War I monoplane single-seat fighter aircraft designed by Dutch engineer Anthony Fokker. Developed in April 1915, the Eindecker was the first purpose-built German fighter aircraft and the first aircraft to be fitted with synchronizer gear, enabling the pilot...
(1915), one of the first German fighter planes - The Antoinette VAntoinette V|-See also:* Antoinette III* Antoinette IV* Antoinette VI* Antoinette VII* Antoinette military monoplane-References:* World Aircraft Information Files. Brightstar Publishing: London. File 889 Sheet 63.* * -See also:...
(1908), a wing-warping variant of the Antoinette IVAntoinette IV|-See also:* Antoinette III* Antoinette V* Antoinette VI* Antoinette VII* Antoinette military monoplane-References:* World Aircraft Information Files. Brightstar Publishing: London. File 889 Sheet 63.* *... - The Antoinette VIAntoinette VI|-See also:* Antoinette III* Antoinette IV* Antoinette V* Antoinette VII* Antoinette military monoplane-References:* World Aircraft Information Files. Brightstar Publishing: London. File 889 Sheet 63.*...
(1909), an aileron-equipped variant of the Antoinette V. Its designer was not satisfied with its handling and later converted it back to wing-warping operation
Modern re-assessment
Several of the reproduction planes built for the film Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying MachinesThose Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines
Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines, Or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes is a 1965 British comedy film starring Stuart Whitman and directed and co-written by Ken Annakin...
used the wing warping control systems of the original aircraft - with mixed results. The wing warping of the Avro Triplane proved surprisingly successful, whereas on the reproduction Antoinette, with its very flexible wing, wing warping offered little effective lateral control. Since the original Antoinette-style ailerons would have probably been even less effective, unobtrusive "modern" ailerons were inserted - even with these lateral control was very poor.
Wing morphing is a modern day extension of wing warping in which the aerodynamic shape of the wing is modified under computer control. The technique, it is hoped, will give improved control at flying speeds near the speed of sound
Speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. In dry air at , the speed of sound is . This is , or about one kilometer in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds....
where traditional control surfaces are less effective. Wing warping and wing morphing are also currently used to get extra control over an aircraft during difficult times such as in a storm. Research into this field is mainly conducted by NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
. CERN
CERN
The European Organization for Nuclear Research , known as CERN , is an international organization whose purpose is to operate the world's largest particle physics laboratory, which is situated in the northwest suburbs of Geneva on the Franco–Swiss border...
in Europe is also trying some of its finds on miniaturised models of several aircraft to better their aerodynamics
Aerodynamics
Aerodynamics is a branch of dynamics concerned with studying the motion of air, particularly when it interacts with a moving object. Aerodynamics is a subfield of fluid dynamics and gas dynamics, with much theory shared between them. Aerodynamics is often used synonymously with gas dynamics, with...
, response, and control in flight or near the speed of sound
Speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled during a unit of time by a sound wave propagating through an elastic medium. In dry air at , the speed of sound is . This is , or about one kilometer in three seconds or approximately one mile in five seconds....
. Airbus
Airbus
Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....
is also rumoured to be trying some of this technology on its test planes.
See also
- AileronAileronAilerons are hinged flight control surfaces attached to the trailing edge of the wing of a fixed-wing aircraft. The ailerons are used to control the aircraft in roll, which results in a change in heading due to the tilting of the lift vector...
- ElevonElevonElevons are aircraft control surfaces that combine the functions of the elevator and the aileron , hence the name. They are frequently used on tailless aircraft such as flying wings. An elevon that is not part of the main wing, but instead is a separate tail surface, is a stabilator...
- a combination elevatorElevator (aircraft)Elevators are flight control surfaces, usually at the rear of an aircraft, which control the aircraft's orientation by changing the pitch of the aircraft, and so also the angle of attack of the wing. In simplified terms, they make the aircraft nose-up or nose-down...
/aileron used on BleriotLouis BlériotLouis Charles Joseph Blériot was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. In 1909 he completed the first flight across a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft, when he crossed the English Channel. For this achievement, he received a prize of £1,000...
's earliest designs and more recently on flying wingFlying wingA flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft which has no definite fuselage, with most of the crew, payload and equipment being housed inside the main wing structure....
and delta wingDelta wingThe delta wing is a wing planform in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta .-Delta-shaped stabilizers:...
aircraft.
External links
- NASA - interactive diagram of wing warping used on the Wright Flyer
- Centennial of flight - illustration of Wilbur Wright invention of wing warping using a cardboard box
- Aerospaceweb - Origins of Control Surfaces
- PBS - What's Wing Warping?
- Morphing Systems: An Overview Cornerstone Research Group