* Flight test for morphing drone
* New auto-translator to Iraq
* “State of war” in southern Afghanistan
* Islamists win big in Somalia
* “Russia’s Lunar return“
* Germany’s mini-UAVs
* Vets sue over data theft
* Israel’s fence, America’s model?
* Goodbye, pickle suits
* Remembering D-Day… and don’t forget the Brits
(Big ups: RC, SS, Milblogs)
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Funny…that doesn’t look like a ‘morphing’ wing to me…it looks like another take on the ‘swing’ wing concept. They probably got a few more million dollars on their grant by just using the word ‘morphing’ though…
@DS:
Knowing nothing more about this program than what the article says, I’d call it a borderline case. While you’re right that it looks like the leading and trailing edges, which seem to be the main structural element in the wing, simply swing between two positions along a set of articulated joints, the area between the two edges seems to actually deform (they describe the surface as a stretchy fabric, and it looks like there may or may not be a skeleton under it which folds up like a cardboard wine-box). Since you’re actually changing the geometry of the wing surface, rather than just swinging two plates past each other, I guess it’s fair to call it a morphing wing, though it’s a pretty first-generation version.
Again, this is just from eyeballing the picture and reading the piece.