The most significant advance in flight?

[Woodlouse2002]

You might well be right. I seem to have some notion rattling round in my single remaining marble that wing-warping is now back in fashion. Maybe Felix can elaborate.

It is true that they are again fiddling with the prospects of wing warping. However I thing they are planning on using this along side ailerons for maximum performance.

[Hagar]

Slightly off-topic. I remember when I was heavily involved with RC slope-soaring gliders. Someone came out with the idea of rotating the complete wings for lateral control rather than use ailerons. Similar to the tailplanes on the fly-by-wire fighters. The plans were published in one of the model magazines. Apparently it worked very well although I never tried it myself.

[Woodlouse2002]

Slightly off-topic. I remember when I was heavily involved with RC slope-soaring gliders. Someone came out with the idea of rotating the complete wings for lateral control rather than use ailerons. Similar to the tailplanes on the fly-by-wire fighters. The plans were published in one of the model magazines. Apparently it worked very well although I never tried it myself.

Ah, I've had this idea also. Always wondered if it would work well or not. I'm sure there are drawbacks though. And the fact that you would need the mechanism for rotating the wings.

[Hagar]

I'm sure there were drawbacks even on a simple model. I don't recall what these were now. The main fulcrums would have to very strong on a real aircraft.

[Woodlouse2002]

[quote]I'm sure there were drawbacks even on a simple model. I don't recall what these were now. The main fulcrums would have to very strong on a real aircraft.

[Hagar]

Before we go back on topic I have seen an aircraft where the complete wingtips rotate as I described. I can't remember what it is now.

[Woodlouse2002]

Before we go back on topic I have seen an aircraft where the complete wingtips rotate as I described. I can't remember what it is now.

Its not some sort of helicopter is it?


Are you prehaps thinking of that STOVL aircraft with two big propellers on the wings that rotate from the vertical to the horizontal position for take off and cruise?

[Hagar]

No it was a fixed-wing aircraft. Maybe the F-4 Phantom?

[Jared]

I believe that it is NASA who is fiddling around with the leading edge of an F-18 in order to simulate wing warping.  

As to Hagar's question I know what he is talkign about, and it sounds familiar, but the particular make/model escapes memory.

As to the original topic of this thread...

How about the internal combustion engine? this allowed us to produce the power with a lighter weight/thrust ratio...I know it's just a minor detail in the history of flight, but perhaps an important one...

[FLYING_TRUCKER]

Hmmmm Well here is another reply from a rudder stomper from the school of hard knocks

The Question was ...the single most individual advance in flight in the last 100 years...

My Reply:  The very next post after this one!!!!!

Aviation, the theory of flight like medicine, like all other good things grows and alters daily, even hourly sometimes.

Take the thread aviation....it goes way back before the Wright Flyer flew....but the dream was still there...and it grew and it grew and it grew through peace and war.
It's still growing....the invention of the swept wing was no more important than mineral or vegetable based hydraulic fluids.

To me the single most individual advance in flight is the next post BECAUSE  we are all equal, we share the same interests, Aviation, without the next post or the one after or the one after that an idea, a dream could be lost.

Happy Landings....Cheers...Doug

[cub3pp]

I could write a list as long as your arm. As we're restricted to one I suggest the development of the standard blind flying instruments. Not forgetting the brave test pilots like James H Doolittle who tested them at great personal risk. If you haven't read his biography I can recommend it.

http://www.schifferbooks.com/military/aviationwwii/0887407374.html

GO DOOLITTLE!!!  hes one of my favorites right up there by Hoover!

[SabreHawk]

Well in 100 years, I geuss there have been so many, from the wing warping that the Wright bros. came up with,( which was quite cool what made Orville think of it, as he sold someone a bicycle tube he noticed the way the box it comes in twisted as he opened it, that's when the way to do it came to him.) to the turbine engine.

But I have to say that the "Flying tail" that was a direct result of the X-1 test program. Which allowed the sound barrier to be broken, and which from then on all jet fighter craft were incorperated with.

[WebbPA]

First, the jet engine.

Second, its immediate logical successor, the swept wing design.

As much as I hate to get off topic, wasn't  the F-86 really the first one to break the sound barrier (see above post)?

[SabreHawk]

Nope In fact the swept wing design didnt come along till after the X-1, and even the the X-1A brought about the swept wing too, along with the flying tail.

[WebbPA]

There are some who disagree ...

Charles E. "Chuck" Yeager is generally recognized throughout the world as the man who broke the Sound Barrier, i.e. flew faster than the speed of sound, in an experimental XS-1 rocket plane, an accomplishment initially kept a secret but for which he eventually received the Medal of Honor. It is believed that a number of Mustang and P-47 Thunderbolt pilots had flown supersonic in World War II but were unable to verify it in the heat of battle, and that the German Me-163 Komet rocket-powered fighter routinely went supersonic with the Germans not even recognizing the existence of a sound barrier. Still, Yeager has enjoyed recognition for half a century as the first man documented to have broken the sound barrier.

http://www.military.cz/usa/air/post_war/f86/f86_en.htm

http://www.users.voicenet.com/~lpadilla/yeager.html

http://www.users.voicenet.com/~lpadilla/welch.html

http://www.cavanaughflightmuseum.com/Ai ... /Page1.htm
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http://www.war-eagles-air-museum.com/f-86_1.html