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A flying wing aeroplane is one which has no body or cylindrical fuselage in the conventional sense. A more recent iteration of this concept has come in the form of the Blended Wing Body or BWB. As the name suggests, it has no distinct body in it's frame. Rather it is simply into the wings(this means that the BWB is not a true flying wing). The term Blended Wing is often also applied to aircraft like F-16 Falcon and Su-27 Flanker, where the fuselage and wing are tightly integrated.
The flying wing is in some ways exactly opposite to the lifting body. But they are also similar in the sense that they do without either wings or a distinct body.
Uppers:
Highly efficent in most respects compared to conventional aeroplanes i.e.
Downers:
An intrinsic aspect of this design is it's stealth characteristics. Even the all metal YB-49 was practically invisible to radar. On it's first flight, the dumbfouned controllers had to come out of their building to find the plane above their heads.
While stealthiness is godsent for millitary use, it may cause unwanted trouble in civilllian use. The people on the ground have to know clearly where you are in order to guide you!
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Also See :
| Aircraft | : | X-47 Pegasus |
| Spacecraft Tech | : | Lifting Body |
| Aircraft | : | Tu-404 |
| Content | Design | |
| airspacemag.com/asm/Web/Site/QT/flyingwing.html : Air&Space Magazine 's Quick Time movie page of the USAF 's YB-49. | 2/10 | 3+0/6 |
| stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/july30/wing.html : A news aricle on the successful test of the BWB model test. | 7/10 | 3+0/6 |
| oea.larc.nasa.gov/PAIS/BWB.html : NASA - LARC factsheet on the BWB program | 9/10 | 3+0/6 |
| airspacemag.com/asm/Mag/Index/1997/JJ/teds.html : Article tracing the roots of the flying wing at Northrop , from their Experimantal No.1 to B-2 Spirit. Includes remarks from test pilot Glen Edwards' diary, who lost his life in a B-49 crash. | 9/10 | 3+0/6 |
| airspacemag.com/asm/mag/supp/jj97/wing.html : Brief technical descriptions of all Northrop flying wings like N-1M , N-9M , X-4 , YB-49 , YB-35 , XP-56 , MX-324 e.t.c | 4/10 | 3+0/6 |
| aoe.vt.edu/Mason/ACiFlyWngs.html : An index of some good books ,papers and other sources one can get on this subject. | 7/10 | 3+(-3)/6 |
| cranfield.ac.uk/coa/tech-avt/avt-4.htm : Article on the challenges faced by the flying wing . Also describes the univ's involvent in the BWB project. | 9/10 | 3+2/6 |
| lerc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/aerosim/LessonHS97/FlyingWing.html : A description of the crash of YB-49. Short and to the point though. | 5/10 | 3+0/6 |
| af.mil/news/factsheets/B_2_Spirit.html : USAF's B-2 Spirit Factsheet. | 3/10 | 3+0/6 |
| boeing.com/defense-space/military/b2bomber/ : Page describing Boeing's involvment in this project. | 3/10 | 3+0.5 |
| sightings.com/ufo/hospecial.htm : Few expect a UFO site to have good material on aviation, but this one is perhaps the best I have gone through on the history of flying wings. Gives due attention to Germany's Horten brothers whose work was without any equal in those days. | 101/10 | 2.5+0/6 |
| dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Helios : Helios flying wing solar powered aeroplane picture gallery. | 5/10 | 0+3+1/10 |
| dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Pathfinder : Pathfinder flying wing solar powered airplane picture gallery. | 7/10 | 0+3+1/10 |
| dfrc.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/Pathfinder-Plus : flying wing Pathfinder-Plus soler powered aircraft picture gallery. | 5/10 | 0+3+1 |
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