According to experts NASA, in the near future to replace the current wide winged liners will come a new generation aircraft with long, thin and flexible wings. This will significantly reduce aerodynamic drag and fuel consumption.
However, these wings there is a serious problem – the so-called flutter, the process of self-excited vibrations, bending and torsional wing of the plane or the rotor, which ultimately leads to their destruction.
Scunk Works, a division of Lockheed Martin responsible for the secret development, in conjunction with NASA, is designing a prototype of future aircraft with flexible wings that are resistant to flutter. The program was launched in 2012, has already become a drone X-56A is equipped with two turbojet P400. The weight of 281 kg, a wingspan of 8.5 meters.
The first test proved fatal: one of the two X-56A crashed at the first test in November 2015. The developers took into account their mistakes and the next flight was more successful. Was also upgraded chassis, brakes and flight controller. Preliminary results were summarized by the project Manager Cheng Moua:
“The arisen problem during takeoff and landing has been solved. We want to show that it is possible to create a wing that will allow you to control the emerging in-flight vibrations”.
Source — NASA