This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
On 27 January 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Wing configuration to Wing-body-tail configuration. The result of the discussion was Not moved. |
Comments moved here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft#Wing configurations. -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Is the double delta design equal to the "Compound delta" design? -- MoRsE ( talk) 19:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I just drew up some illustrations. What do you think? I don't know why the text has gone fixed-pitch, in the source file it is sans. -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Meanwhile there are some blue diagrams of individual planforms on the Commons, here. Do you people think they are suitable for this article? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 13:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, I added some. Now there are two different styles, thick monochrome outline for the frontal elevations and blue solid with thin outlines for the planforms. I am thinking of doing them all the same style. Any preferences? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I just finished all the drawings I had planned. Is there anything I have missed or got wrong (or just done so badly that it needs doing better)? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Would it be useful to have a category for each of the different wing configurations? I see that there is a category 'Flying wing aircraft' and one for 'Triplane aircraft', so the precedent has been set. AFAICS there aren't categories for e.g. gull-wing, inverted gull-wing etc. I think that they could be a useful addition. What do others think? -- TraceyR ( talk) 14:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
This NASA ref from 1995 uses it for a "waverider" wind-tunnel model with a pronounced upward curve from about 2/3 out. Interestingly, the authors found it necessary to define what they meant by "cranked":
The term "cranked" in this case refers to a shape where the sweep angle not only changes, but alsowhere the leading edge curves upward to add a significant amount of dihedral in the aft portion of the wing. The cranked-wing shape was designed to provide improvements in subsonic aerodynamic performance due to a small increase in aspect ratio as well as improvements in lateral-directional stability over the straight-wing design.
I'm coming to the conclusion that "cranked" was not as specific as either "gull wing" or "inverted gull wing"; these seem imply a wing with a change of dihedral/anhedral along the wing, generally (but with exceptions!) starting with one and changing to the other - at least that's how I understand them. Does cranked just mean "bent" in some way? -- TraceyR ( talk) 06:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
indicating that "cranked" just indicates a bend without specifying in which direction. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:54, 11 September 2009 (UTC)The Mariner first appeared in 1937 as the Martin Model 162 project, giving birth to the prototype XPBM-1 as a twin engine flying boat with a high-mounted monoplane gull wing (cranked at the engine nacelles), ...
How about a pic of the T-tail and the Cruciform tail? GraemeLeggett ( talk) 20:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
There's a long list of categories on this talk page, some of which seem, to my inexperienced eye, to be inappropriate. Shouldn't some of the categories which suggest that this is a poor article be removed now? -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Some types, such as the Westland Lysander have reverse taper on the inner wing section near the root. Does anyone know if this arrangement has a special name? If it does not, is it still worth adding to the "Variation along span" section? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
I feel that this article meets the standards now, som I am nominating it to the Featured lists :) -- MoRsE ( talk) 16:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I can see that in this article the emphasis is, properly, on appearance rather than function, so we do not want to go too far into the engineering details. It is, though misleading to say the external wing struts on a high wing aircraft ( Cessna 172 say) are supporting the wing and in compression. That is true on the ground, but in flight they are in extension, conveying the lift generated by the wings to the aircraft's fuselage and its load, as well as preventing the wings folding upwards. Hence the name lift struts, though they may also carry drag forces Some low wing aircraft ( Piper Pawnee, for example) have lift struts that are in compression in flight because they are above the wing. TSRL ( talk) 22:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Couple of thoughts:
Points worth making? TSRL ( talk) 15:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Sweep was used as early as 1907 to achieve longitudinal static stability by one of the pioneers of aviation, John William Dunne, see also Swept_wing#History. Would a brief mention of this aspect (with wl) be useful? -- TraceyR ( talk) 22:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
The French Makhonine MAK-10 is referred to as the world's first variable geometry wing. Surely this description belongs to the Pfitzner Flyer which introduced wing extensions in 1910, albeit as control surfaces to induce roll moment rather than to increase/decrease wing area and or sweep. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Folks, On another subject of weird wing configuration please check Talk:Nikitin-Shevchenko IS#Some pages that will help from article and look at the drawings - Unbelievable! Jack Jackehammond ( talk) 06:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I would say yes: I have several books by reputable authors which describe shoulder-wing types as having a high wing. Apparently at least one dictionary can be interpreted to disagree with this. Does anybody have any further references to back up the idea that a shoulder wing is not a type of high wing? We could have an ambiguous situation on our hands.
Meanwhile I'd be grateful if my original edit could be left un-reverted until this is cleared up, as per Wikipedia's dispute guidelines.
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
As indicated before, the term "main fuselage" seems meaningless (is there a main and a lesser fuselage?). Secondly, there is no justification for making a shoulder wing a subcategory. Thirdly, it is clearer, more elegant and more logical to go in steps from low to mid to shoulder to high to parasol. Fourthly, the line "(as opposed to mounting on the cockpit fairing or similar)" seems meaningless. Fifthly, since manufacturers (of say, ARV Super2) specifically chose the shoulder wing to avoid the horrors of a high wing, it seems odd to try to put them together. Sixthly, a high wing makes it easy to adopt a correct CofG position; whereas a shoulder wing gives enhanced visibility, but (on a light aircraft) the wing must be swept forwards (ARV, Bolkow, Saab) to main tain correct CofG. However, the forward sweep allows a more efficient (& therefore smaller) wing, as the span-wise flow of air on the upper surface flows towards the fuselage, not away, thereby reducing wingtip vortex drag. Seventh, the dictionary reference provided seems to declare a shoulder wing a type all of its own. In short, while a shoulderwing has some similarities to a high wing, it is not helpful nor to call it a type (or sub-category) of high wing. Would you say a mid wing is a category of low wing? Surely not!
(Note that the special benefits, i.e. visibility & efficiency, of a shoulder wing apply mainly to light aircraft; large aircraft may choose a shoulder wing for their own reasons).
Sorry to have appeared to enter an "edit war", but (as a shoulder-wing pilot) I do feel I reasonably qualified to comment. No offence meant! Arrivisto ( talk) 12:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi, By the way, can anyone please supply a citation to support this statement: "A shoulder wing is like a high-wing, in producing a pendulous fuselage requiring no wing dihedral; and its limited ground effect reduces float on landing"? Arrivisto ( talk) 12:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
At last I see where you've been coming from! I agree with you that on a large aircraft, the significance of a shoulder wing is negligible and it may as well be deemed a sub-type of high wing; it's just that on a small 2-seater like the ARV (or Saab or Bolkow), the significance is huge. cheers Arrivisto ( talk) 15:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
and here we are having the same old discussion. I maintain that there are (at least) two mildly incompatible usages of the term "high wing" and that readers need to be told about both, while Arrivisto ( talk seems to favour a single PoV. I can only ask, has something changed in the last two years to invalidate the other PoV? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:38, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
A canard (lifting or not) surface looks like a stabilizer (same general dimensions) but is NOT stabilizing at all; as located ahead of the CG, it is strongly destabilizing. It provides added lift and/or pitch control. The aft wing (the horizontal tail or the main wing in the canard case) IS always the stabilizing surface. The pitch stability comes from the lift slope difference between the front and the back surfaces. Plxd ( talk) 12:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia must respect normal use of language, "stabiliser" is recognized even by the spell checker in this Wikipedia edit window as a typo. Try "stabilizer". If you try searching on Google the vote is 57 million to 9 million. It is not acceptable to propagate errors of language in a reference work. Correcting common misunderstandings is part of the educational function of a reference work. -- Stodieck ( talk) 18:03, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
"Horizontal stabiliZer" is better than "tailplane" because it is somewhat self-defining and less prone to misunderstandings. It is the "technical term".
Horizontal stabilizers are not required to have a slope difference to be stabilizing, this is not dihedral. They normally have a negative lift to hold the nose of an airplane up if the center of gravity is located ahead of the center of lift of the main wing. Having the center of gravity is located ahead of the center of lift is what creates stability. The negative lift is actually a pitch control function not part of the stabilization. The horizontal stabilizers on some three surface aircraft are in fact normally flown at neutral lift. Something you could read about in this article if Steelpillow hadn't deleted the entries and citations on three-surface and 3-lifting-surface aircraft "wholesale" from this article.
"find a generic word for both fore- and tail-mounted auxiliary horizontal planes" Using "forward wing" or "small forward wing" instead of "canard" helps reduce confusion immensely. As things are, canard should always be qualified. I.e. "canard wing" or "canard aircraft" Tailplane is really OK as it is, but people misuse it.
I suggest that this section heading be changed to Horizontal stabilizer configurations. That what the section addresses not Horizontal stabilizers. -- Stodieck ( talk) 18:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Allow me to explain why I undid an edit by 'Steelpillow'
Most simply, the point/reference about 'semi-elliptical' wings - if you look carefully, the statement in the reference is to the SEV-3 not the P-35. I'm no expert in this mark, & they do appear to be related, but they are not the same, so this doesn't really qualify as a suitable reference.
More importantly, as regards to the meaning of an 'elliptical' wing. It can be shown that if the lift distribution of a wing(s) varies elliptically from tip to tip, the down wash generated will be uniform & the induced drag will be minimised for the lift. I have my lecture notes as a source for this, but it isn't really appropriate as a wikipedia reference. From an aerodynamic perspective, it doesn't matter how this distribution is achieved. Therefore to claim that having a wing with curved leading & trailing edges is required in order to maximise aerodynamic efficiency is rather flawed. The fact is, the wing is elliptical so long as the shape (not size) of the cross section remains constant & the chord length (and hence local wing area & lift) varies elliptically from tip to tip. It doesn't matter if the leading, trailing or both edge(s) are curved, the wing will still be 'elliptical;' the term 'semi-elliptical' has no aerodynamic meaning (if you think about it, the spitfire doesn't have (geometrically) elliptical wings - they are in fact 2 semi-ellipse with different eccentricity, joined along the lateral axis - one of these semi-ellipses could just as well have an eccentricity of 1, i.e. a straight line segment). Similarly, the lift distribution could be achieved with constant cord, but having the wing twist at an appropriate rate from root to tip, so that the root is at a greater angle of attack than the tip. While this isn't an issue of planform, it is to an extent a feature of the wings' configuration & is certainly pertinent in the context of a claim of being "Aerodynamically the most efficient."
Another point to consider (though not directly relevant to this article) is that by having the wing twist down towards the tips - when the aircraft's angle of attach is increased, the root will have a higher angle of attach than the tip, so the roots will stall first, with the stall gradually spreading towards the tips - with the tips still developing lift, the aircraft will remain stable in roll. With an elliptical planform (& the necessary uniform angle of attach) the entire wing will stall at the same angle of attack, or in reality, one wing will stall entirely, slightly before the other, putting the aircraft into a spin. So while an elliptical wing might be "aerodynamically the most efficient," it isn't necessarily the best, so shouldn't be stated as such without qualification - this would be misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.172.13 ( talk) 15:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
While on the subject of wing planforms - does anyone know if a wing made up of a constant chord center section with tapered outer panels constitutes a less extreme variant on the compound taper or something different? It should be mentioned as a considerable number of aircraft used this planform in the late 30s and early 40s (T-6/Harvard, C-47, Lancaster, Avenger, Halifax, etc), even if it doesn't have a distinct name in the literature. Unfortunately all the books I have that mention planforms are either somewhat simplistic and mention only a few examples of different planforms before moving on, or they jump right into the calculations, covering all of the possibilities without explicitly naming them. Then there is the case of the Junkers 88 with three different leading edge sweepback angles, and two trailing edge angles. A simplified elipse as it were. NiD.29 ( talk) 05:24, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
How does Modified tapered wing sound? NiD.29 ( talk) 14:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
This article has grown larger than I expected, with shedloads of images to upload. Would it benefit from splitting into several smaller pages? For example the section on Wing planform is much the biggest and might easily be given its own page. What do you think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 11:21, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
My original intention was to classify and illustrate the significant wing configurations, and set them in context rather than just list them. Turned out to be more of them than I expected, and I added the idea of linking to at least one example of each, but I think the rest of the idea was good. So - a summary is hard because what do you leave out and how do you provide a hook to weird names that aren't obvious where they belong (such as rhomboidal)? And what angle do you take on it; structural, aerodynamic, planespotting? A list leaves you wondering why people built that stuff and did it work, it's just not informative. I don't see the few words here on dihedral as competing with the main article. And if some people think its current size is OK, then maybe that answers my question the easy way - it's not going to grow much any more. So, maybe there's no problem after all. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Contrary to recent edits, the canard surface appeared as a stabiliser on the WWII Kyushu J7W and several of Rutan's postwar models such as the VariEze and many others. It is important to note that the "tandem triple" descriptions are modernisms and that historically the small surfaces were not though of as "wings" but ancillary surfaces for control and stabilisation: the "Canard" section is the wrong place for this. The tandem triple entry has also grown far too long. All this was stitched through by less drastic edits, which may be more easily restored or re-done individually than unpicked from the mass off stuff that needed reverting. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
==Stop vandalizing my edits == canards are never stabilizers period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stodieck ( talk • contribs) 21:09, 16 May 2012
That is correct. That is why the Wrights abandoned canards with the model B. The pilot had to constantly level the plane by adjusting the angle of the canard while flying the model A.
When they are stable, Canards are stabilized by the aft surfaces of the main wing. Think of the tailless Concorde, and put a canard on it. If the canard is small enough no problem. If the canard is too large the plane becomes unstable. -- Stodieck ( talk) 14:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Mr. Hunt and I would like point out that my sources are the Wright brothers. And that Steelpillow cannot provide technical citations to the contrary. He can find articles that call canards stabilizers. Any article that explains how a horizontal stabilizer works also contains the evidence that canard wings are destabilizing. This has been pointed out by others in talk sessions with Steelpillow. If we cannot contain his edits, I will refrain from any other work in the Wiki. -- Stodieck ( talk) 05:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
"how to achieve stability using a canard foreplane: http://www.desktop.aero/appliedaero/configuration/canardstability.html and http://adamone.rchomepage.com/cg_canard.htm" If you work through these you will find that the secret to making stable "canard aircraft" is keeping the size of the "canard winglets" small enough to prevent them from destabilizing the whole "canard aircraft". I.e. passive "canard winglets" are alway destabilizing, "canard aircraft" are clearly not always unstable.
Canards winglets can be used as pitch control element for active stabilizer system. They not desirable from a reliability perspective. (Works just fine if you don't mind dying everytime the computer crashes.)
The problem with the term "canard" is that it is almost universally used without specifying whether we are referring to an aircraft configuration or a fin. As editors of the wikipedia I strongly suggest that we never allow the word canard to used without a qualifier; canard winglet, canard fin, canard aircraft, or canard configuration. This alias is deadly. "Small forward wing" helps reduce confusion about the fin type of "canard".
I am not being dogmatic about saying that "canards can never be stable", In fact I have never said this at all. I said that "canards" (intending to say small forward wings) are never stabilizers. That is to say, that, per se, they never add to the stability of an aircraft.
"Some airplanes ... get their stability from a much smaller wing (called a canard) in the front." http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/aoastab.html#sec-canard-same — This amateur author does not actually analyze stability. I would put this under self published references.
And at http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/Stability_II/TH27.htm, "The North American XB-70 has a pair of canards for stability at supersonic speeds to prevent tuck under." This is a caption under a picture, not an encyclopedic reference. This statement is simply inacurate and suggests that tuck under is an instability. I believe that tuck under is quite stable, it is not an instability in the sense of this disscusion.
The theory of how horizontal stabilizers work has been known literally since the Wright brothers. It has been taught to millions as part of standard pilot training curriculum since that time. It is included in every book on aeronautics. There are 1000s of references. I would guess that there are a half million people in the US alone who understand, technically, why arrows don't have feathers on the front.
-- Stodieck ( talk) 17:34, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Now restore the 3-surface entries. You can't agree or disagree with material you have never seen before, and don't understand. And that is not sufficient criteria for removal in any case. -- Stodieck ( talk) 19:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Hence the neutral point for a conventional configuration lies aft of the wing’s aerodynamic center but the neutral point of a canard lies forward. That is the explicit realization of Bryan and Williams’ conclusion that the aft tail configuration is relatively more stable than the canard [if] the same surfaces are used. The more forward is the neutral point, the more difficult it is in practice to get a stable aircraft: the natural tendency during design and construction of an aircraft is for the cg to lie further aft than desirable.
Having slept on the problem, I'd suggest there are two distinct points of view here:
[Update] Or, to put it another way, there is a difference between the design purpose of a feature and the technical mechanism which delivers the outcome. Both are valid on their own terms.
While Wikipedia undeniably aims to be a reference work, such works can have different scope. A text book may give a word a precise technical meaning, while a dictionary might record several different usages of the word in different contexts. A general encyclopedia such as this one will explain the more notable usages defined in the dictionary or, as we put it, respect different points of view.
So, does respect for both points of view here represent a reasonable strategy? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 12:20, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Reread the paragraph above your last paragraph, starting with "I don't recall anyone saying that canard aircraft are intrinsically unstable". Your attacking a statement that has not been made. Also, neither my version, nor Steelpillow's reversion of the Canard entry under "horizontal stabilizers" describes canard winglets as stabilizers. Please difference the revision history before and after the "wholesale revision of edits" to see what was actually changed. This discussion has gotten lost. Turn your attention to the inclusion of 3lsc aircraft that was also deleted by Steelpillow in this edit. -- 208.74.180.13 ( talk) 00:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
"Not all canards have negative pitch stability (some do, some don't - it's a design issue" - You are referring to canard aircraft, canard winglets are always destabilizing. If the center of gravity moves forward after the addition of canard winglets, the main wing becomes a stabilizer. The canard winglets are just a lifting wing, never a stabilizer. This is what the deleted text stated. -- Stodieck ( talk) 15:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I am (not very) astonished to see what is a relatively technical discussion supposedly aided by references to captions on photos. From a control viewpoint a lightly loaded forward horizontal surface would have to have a lift gain in pitch significantly less (due to pitching moment, and the drag of the little wing, which is destabilising in its own right) than that of the main wing in response to small perturbations in AoA from a trimmed condition, in the linear range. This is rather unlikely in a passive system, to put it mildly. I'd have thought a search of the LARC/NACA/NASA archives would be more productive than random hits on blogs. NACA 941 and NASA X 823 are a good starting point. The Culick paper is also fine, presumably the editor denigrating it didn't bother to read it, as it discusses the history of the issue, not just Wright's understanding. Greglocock ( talk) 02:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
One of my contributions eliminated by this wholesale reversion was the inclusion of "3 lifting surface" and "three surface" aircraft. I have done some googling on the prevalence of these terms and the terms used instead in the current "horizontal stabilizer" section of the Wikipedia article.
"tandem triple" aircraft 7,220 hits (Wikipedia leads the way)
"3 lifting surface" aircraft 10,600,000 hits
"three surface" aircraft 63,900 hits
"triplet" aircraft produces millions of hits, none of which seem to refer to actual aircraft
It is very clear, from the number of hits on valid citations within these searches that the aircraft design establishment usually uses "3 lifting surface" or 3lsc first, followed by "three surface" aircraft. Neither triplet nor tandem triplet have significant usage. I suggest that the terms 3 lifting surface", 3lsc, and "three surface" replace "tandem triple" and "triplet". "Tandem triple" is quite suspicious since the wing configuration diagram it refers to is not a tandem.
The following article may be of interest here. [ Who Fooled Wikipedia]
OK, so I edited back the scope because there are so many reasons put forward for this configuration. That kind of suggests it needs its own article, too. Then I thought to check those search hits quoted above, and Google found:
So then I also tried:
I find the differences remarkable: even searching on "3 lifting surface" alone gave just 11,700 hits, so I do wonder which search engine found over ten million, or whether perhaps that was a typing error? One trusts that the Who Fooled Wikipedia link below it was posted in good faith. ;-)
Anyway, it is not clear which is the winner here so some careful digging for reliable references is going to be needed. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
"3 lifting surface" aircraft 10,600,000 hits is what happens when google removes the quotes and one fails to notice. -- Stodieck ( talk) 00:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Am I alone in thinking the slip wing (as per the Hillson Slip-wing Hurricane & Bi-mono) should be listed? It took off as a biplane and then jetisoned the top wing to continue as a monoplane so as to increase the possible takeoff weight... NiD.29 ( talk) 23:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
____ -----||--||--- ==---||--||-== || ===||
I had the airfix kit when I was a kid, and I removed the pod and reattached the wing parts to convert it into a normal aircraft. NiD.29 ( talk) 20:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Revert to last good edit? You reverted a whole series of good edits. I can't use the words I'd like to use for that insulting unwarranted,
WP:OWN-ish comment (and the reverts).
The edits I made fixed a slew of egregous errors and replaced poor examples with better ones - you didn't even have the decency to check if the changes were warranted.
Many of the examples are obvious only to specialists in violation of wiki policy, rather than those that might be familiar to non-specialists visiting this page - such as the Cessna (150, 172 etc) versus the P-80 which most Americans wouldn't even recognize anymore and the EE Lightning (which is a special case not otherwise covered as it is a type of cropped delta - or so I have read) vs. one of the many Boeings or Airbuses - or indeed any of the long list of aircraft that would make better examples.
Etc etc...
A sesquiplane is defined by wing area - not span. It applies to aircraft with either reduced span or chord as per any reputable source you may deign to check such as (Gunston, Bill, The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004,
ISBN
978-0-521-84140-5, page.552) which says - "Biplane whose lower wing has less than half the area of the upper." (bolding mine)
The F-111 was hardly the first military swing wing - the
Grumman XF10F Jaguar beat it into the air by 15 years.
Saying the Crusader lifts the leading edge is misleading - it rotates the whole wing, causing the leading edge to raise. The difference is that leading edge devices of some sort are allowed for in the original statement when it is really just rotating about its rear wing spar.
Etc etc...
Excellent work on the drawings but you need to let others make substantive improvements to the text.
NiD.29 (
talk) 18:31, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Steelpillow, you said to "discuss first", but the be bold edict specifically contradicts this. No editor is ever required to discuss an edit before making it, particularly not IP's. No one needs to get permission from anybody. Ahunt, you reactively declared my edits "unhelpful", apparently with little actual examination of them, and you tried to enforce Steelpillow's admonishment to discuss by artificially creating the first steps toward an edit war. You both have behaved in a way that suggests you feel like you own the article, or at least are reactively biased against IP edits.
I've found there's not much anybody can do about this. If one or two editors want to own an obscure article they can, even though it is against WP policy. I made one last attempt to improve the section. I integrated polyhedral, and made a few formatting improvements (like scooting the channel-wing diagram below it's description). I retained the removal of those two off-topic inline citations to "cranked arrow". I simplified the "do not confuse with cranked arrow planform" message in a way that (I think) doesn't actually add to the confusion like (I think) the previous wording did.
If you want to summary revert that too, you probably can, but I don't recommend it. Instead, please carefully review it, and edit your improvements into it. It really is better than it was before, and you can make it even better by adding your perspective to it, rather than just naysaying.
108.7.243.154 ( talk) 17:24, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Ahunt, sorry if I swept you up in implying you were attempting to own the article. Nobody really has the time to review past histories, only the time to assess the recent edit. The apparent tag-team effort did me give that impression. Your "unhelpful" remark in your reversion edit summary did contribute strongly to my perception that you did not assume good faith.
Steelpillow, yes it is sometimes easier to revert. I've done it in the past, but I've found that it's important to be really really nice about it.
But, I have more to do in my life than to get muddy in fights like this. You win. I won't touch this page again.
Yours, 108.7.243.154 ( talk) 00:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd add the Rogallo wing, that is some kind of a Delta wing, but soft; as example of Circular wing, the American Nemuth Parasol; as a Semicircular wing, the Arup's flying wings and the Navy's Flying Pancake; as an unclassifiable or inverted Delta, the straight part as leading edge (It would be good having specific professional comments about the advantages, disadvantages and performances of the Inverted Delta), the 1934 design of Raoul J. Hoffman (Popular Aviation, March 1935, pp 163 and 196), and also one of the Fauvel flying wings, the AV-10; in YouTube, linked to the Arup airplanes' films, some other low aspect ratio Inverted Delta-like wings appear. There was another example of Annular wing, similar to the French Coleoptere and to 1906 Louis Bleriot's 'Bleriot III' that Bleriot designed for water takeoff and landing; this Annular wing toy airplane had an ordinary chord and conventional tail surfaces, it was proposed in the April 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics to be built by hobbyists. The July 1964 Issue of Popular Mechanics features a Pancake or Parasol wing model airplane. The 1909 French airplane Givaudan had tandem round wings. The first variable swept wing jet airplane was the Messerchmitt P.1101, that inspired the early USA designs, however, the first attempts were unstable, and the problem was not solved until a short, fixed high swept back section was added to the root of wings. The Burnelli's lifting fuselages can be considered another special type of wing? Some data exist about fully flying disc shaped aircraft, as in Popular Mechanics Jan 1995 and Nov 2000.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 18:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
The book "German Jet Genesis", by David Masters, Jane's 1982, ISBN 0 7106 0186 7, includes drawings of three German flying disks designs from the last months of WWII: the Miethe, the Habermohl and the Schriever; other sources say that the Schriever reached the flight stage, going well above the speed of sound, but was deliberately destroyed before falling in the hands of the allies. It was said also that Schriever, that after the war relocated in Austria, offered to build again a copy of his saucer for a very low cost, but found no support. The March 1956 issue of "Mechanix Illustrated" -MI- has in the cover a drawing of an U.S. Air Force Flying Saucer Project, and in pp 78-81, the inherent technology in it, mainly jet engines, thrust control and Coanda effect for handling. From where or what they had the idea of building a thing so shaped remains unknown to me. In 1964, Popular Mechanics -PM- published an article about the research conducted by major Seversky on a flying machine, round in shape and with a wire structure close to the one in an umbrella, supposed to fly on the principle of conservation of momentum by sending down a flow of ionized air, idea that failed because the inherent physics never reaching a sufficient degree of efficacy in transforming electrical power into lift; the November 1964 PM issue -Spanish edition- containing this flying object also included an article on air pollution that, in addition of describing the California "Chemical Smogs", warned against the global warming effects of the continuously increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2 due to mankind's activities, from 290 ppm in 1890 to 315 ppm then. In the Moller website and in YouTube, you can see a USA prototype of flying disc apparently using the basis depicted in MI-March 1956, hardly achieving a several feet height uncontrollabe hovering over the ground.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 21:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Canard : the Saab Viggen canard provides lift and pitch control; it is a destabilizing surface.
Tandem : both wings provide lift (like a lifting canard); the front wing is destabilizing like a canard, the aft wing IS the stabiliser (like a taiplane). Plxdesi2 ( talk) 21:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
From "Proposed strategy" :
"When the CG is behind the neutral point the destabilising influence of the main wing exceeds the stabilising influence of the canard. I see nothing in Culick to indicate the canard should not be described as a stabiliser".
Dolphin (
t) 22:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
@Steelpillow. "no need to mention "lift" twice (also, the Viggen predates modern analysis).
The aircraft mounts missiles ahead of the wing. If it retains level flight at all, it is due to lift from the canards. Hcobb ( talk) 20:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
The French 'Aviation Magazine International' nº 602, 15-31 Jan 1973, has a description of the results with different arrangements of the foreplane, regarding the Saab Viggen, by J Gambu and J Perard, and the Feb 23, 1985 issue of Flight International, an article by B R A Burns 'Canards design with care'; the Curtiss XP 55 Ascender featured a variable incidence foreplane with elevons in the trailing edge, and the modern Rafale and Eurofighter install inverted Vee fully moveable foreplanes, but without elevons; tailplanes in the V shape (Beechcraft) or foreplanes in an A configuration (Curtiss XP 55) act also as rudders.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 18:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the 3-view and other images suggest that it is a lifting canard. Whatever, the whole description is peripheral to this article, so I have deleted it. Effort can be better spent correcting the misdirections and falsehoods in the main Saab 37 Viggen article. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 13:43, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Are Winglets to be included here ? Plxdesi2 ( talk) 09:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
as used on the Short SB.1 & 4 (Sherpa) experimental aircraft needs including, along with a matching image. Unfortunately I don't have much on it - is there a straight wing version? NiD.29 ( talk) 01:53, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
As for sources... - Barnes, C.H.; Shorts Aircraft since 1900, Naval Institute Press, Maryland, 1989 ISBN 0870216627 pages 441-443 (or the British edition - not sure if that changes the page numbering...). Cheers, NiD.29 ( talk) 18:54, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
This is fascinating stuff, for sure, but I came to this page looking for different forms of wings in animals. Should that get added to this page or made a separate page? I guess it would depend on how many different designs there are or something? And what about dandelion seeds and the like. It kind of looks like those fluff balls are made up of lots of wing-like structures. Would that count? Um the Muse ( talk) 03:18, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The "changes in center of gravity with changing speed due to wing bending moments, along with a number of other advantages" are caused by aeroelastic effects. The cited sources make this clear. (There are some other effects which may be good or bad depending on the given design). Maury Markowitz ( talk · contribs) does not seem to understand this and insists on adding the long version quoted, which highlights an arbitrary effect, I am trying to restore something closer to the original wording along the lines of "the undesirable effects of aeroelastic bending". This is both shorter and less biased towards one particular effect, altogether more encyclopedic and easier to read. What do others think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 22:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
The B-70 Valkyrie used waveriding, aka compression lift, in cruise. The purpose of this is not to increase the net lift as such, but to allow the craft to be trimmed to a lower AoA which reduces net drag while maintaining the same lift. Maury Markowitz ( talk · contribs) does not understand this and insists on adding a longer and incorrect statement, saying that the waveriding effect is used to increase lift as well as to reduce drag. What do others think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 22:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
This article is a summary list of many things with just enough information on each to make the point, it does not go into detail on any of them. Aspect ratios need to be kept to low, medium and high, nothing less general than that. The images are just sketches and can change at any time, I have indeed changed a good few of them over the years: nobody can rely on them for detail measurements, so special images would need to be prepared. The place for such measured images and associated numbers would be in the main article on Aspect ratio (aeronautics), which is only one click away. Does anybody still have a problem with that? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 17:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
I have one question: in the German Wikipedia the Grumman F6F Hellcat is described as a Low wing monoplane (in contrast to the predecessor model F4F Wildcat as Mid wing). Also in the German Wikipedia the P-47 is described as a Mid wing monoplane. Comparing these two planes (F6F and P-47) show that both planes are similar constructed. My question is: what is the correct specification of the F6F Hellcat? Low or Mid wing? -- Peettriple ( talk) 08:06, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
How do varying incidence and thickness change the chord? Thanks. Pieter1963 ( talk) 00:20, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
what's the difference please between wings with straight, rectangular (relative to the fuselage, regarding planform) leading edge and tapered trailing edge (e.g. https://www.williamssoaring.com/images/fleet-images/ask21-planform-450x.jpg) vs. the opposite (e.g. https://www.j2mcl-planeurs.net/dbj2mcl/planeurs-machines/3vues/Masak_Scimitar-I_3v.jpg) vs. symetrically tapered wings (planform) (e.g. https://cdn.britannica.com/63/189163-050-C6C43205/Glider.jpg)? advantages and disadvantages? and what's the effect of flaps coming down with type one, especially if it's a plane with short, stubby wings and strong tapering? the air-flow should be directed away from the wing-tips towards the fuselage reducing the wing-tip-vortex...? thanx! HilmarHansWerner ( talk) 11:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. WP:SNOW oppose and zero rationale given, no need to waste time going through the motions. ( non-admin closure) ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ ( ᴛ) 05:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Wing configuration → Wing-body-tail configuration – Please place your rationale for the proposed move here. Halfcookie ( talk) 12:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)
This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
On 27 January 2024, it was proposed that this article be moved from Wing configuration to Wing-body-tail configuration. The result of the discussion was Not moved. |
Comments moved here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Aircraft#Wing configurations. -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:27, 19 June 2008 (UTC)
Is the double delta design equal to the "Compound delta" design? -- MoRsE ( talk) 19:29, 2 July 2008 (UTC)
I just drew up some illustrations. What do you think? I don't know why the text has gone fixed-pitch, in the source file it is sans. -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:26, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Meanwhile there are some blue diagrams of individual planforms on the Commons, here. Do you people think they are suitable for this article? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 13:51, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Well, I added some. Now there are two different styles, thick monochrome outline for the frontal elevations and blue solid with thin outlines for the planforms. I am thinking of doing them all the same style. Any preferences? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:24, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
I just finished all the drawings I had planned. Is there anything I have missed or got wrong (or just done so badly that it needs doing better)? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
Would it be useful to have a category for each of the different wing configurations? I see that there is a category 'Flying wing aircraft' and one for 'Triplane aircraft', so the precedent has been set. AFAICS there aren't categories for e.g. gull-wing, inverted gull-wing etc. I think that they could be a useful addition. What do others think? -- TraceyR ( talk) 14:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)
This NASA ref from 1995 uses it for a "waverider" wind-tunnel model with a pronounced upward curve from about 2/3 out. Interestingly, the authors found it necessary to define what they meant by "cranked":
The term "cranked" in this case refers to a shape where the sweep angle not only changes, but alsowhere the leading edge curves upward to add a significant amount of dihedral in the aft portion of the wing. The cranked-wing shape was designed to provide improvements in subsonic aerodynamic performance due to a small increase in aspect ratio as well as improvements in lateral-directional stability over the straight-wing design.
I'm coming to the conclusion that "cranked" was not as specific as either "gull wing" or "inverted gull wing"; these seem imply a wing with a change of dihedral/anhedral along the wing, generally (but with exceptions!) starting with one and changing to the other - at least that's how I understand them. Does cranked just mean "bent" in some way? -- TraceyR ( talk) 06:29, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
indicating that "cranked" just indicates a bend without specifying in which direction. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:54, 11 September 2009 (UTC)The Mariner first appeared in 1937 as the Martin Model 162 project, giving birth to the prototype XPBM-1 as a twin engine flying boat with a high-mounted monoplane gull wing (cranked at the engine nacelles), ...
How about a pic of the T-tail and the Cruciform tail? GraemeLeggett ( talk) 20:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)
There's a long list of categories on this talk page, some of which seem, to my inexperienced eye, to be inappropriate. Shouldn't some of the categories which suggest that this is a poor article be removed now? -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Some types, such as the Westland Lysander have reverse taper on the inner wing section near the root. Does anyone know if this arrangement has a special name? If it does not, is it still worth adding to the "Variation along span" section? -- Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:51, 22 September 2009 (UTC)
I feel that this article meets the standards now, som I am nominating it to the Featured lists :) -- MoRsE ( talk) 16:43, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I can see that in this article the emphasis is, properly, on appearance rather than function, so we do not want to go too far into the engineering details. It is, though misleading to say the external wing struts on a high wing aircraft ( Cessna 172 say) are supporting the wing and in compression. That is true on the ground, but in flight they are in extension, conveying the lift generated by the wings to the aircraft's fuselage and its load, as well as preventing the wings folding upwards. Hence the name lift struts, though they may also carry drag forces Some low wing aircraft ( Piper Pawnee, for example) have lift struts that are in compression in flight because they are above the wing. TSRL ( talk) 22:22, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
Couple of thoughts:
Points worth making? TSRL ( talk) 15:10, 21 February 2010 (UTC)
Sweep was used as early as 1907 to achieve longitudinal static stability by one of the pioneers of aviation, John William Dunne, see also Swept_wing#History. Would a brief mention of this aspect (with wl) be useful? -- TraceyR ( talk) 22:01, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
The French Makhonine MAK-10 is referred to as the world's first variable geometry wing. Surely this description belongs to the Pfitzner Flyer which introduced wing extensions in 1910, albeit as control surfaces to induce roll moment rather than to increase/decrease wing area and or sweep. -- TraceyR ( talk) 09:28, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
Folks, On another subject of weird wing configuration please check Talk:Nikitin-Shevchenko IS#Some pages that will help from article and look at the drawings - Unbelievable! Jack Jackehammond ( talk) 06:47, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
I would say yes: I have several books by reputable authors which describe shoulder-wing types as having a high wing. Apparently at least one dictionary can be interpreted to disagree with this. Does anybody have any further references to back up the idea that a shoulder wing is not a type of high wing? We could have an ambiguous situation on our hands.
Meanwhile I'd be grateful if my original edit could be left un-reverted until this is cleared up, as per Wikipedia's dispute guidelines.
— Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
As indicated before, the term "main fuselage" seems meaningless (is there a main and a lesser fuselage?). Secondly, there is no justification for making a shoulder wing a subcategory. Thirdly, it is clearer, more elegant and more logical to go in steps from low to mid to shoulder to high to parasol. Fourthly, the line "(as opposed to mounting on the cockpit fairing or similar)" seems meaningless. Fifthly, since manufacturers (of say, ARV Super2) specifically chose the shoulder wing to avoid the horrors of a high wing, it seems odd to try to put them together. Sixthly, a high wing makes it easy to adopt a correct CofG position; whereas a shoulder wing gives enhanced visibility, but (on a light aircraft) the wing must be swept forwards (ARV, Bolkow, Saab) to main tain correct CofG. However, the forward sweep allows a more efficient (& therefore smaller) wing, as the span-wise flow of air on the upper surface flows towards the fuselage, not away, thereby reducing wingtip vortex drag. Seventh, the dictionary reference provided seems to declare a shoulder wing a type all of its own. In short, while a shoulderwing has some similarities to a high wing, it is not helpful nor to call it a type (or sub-category) of high wing. Would you say a mid wing is a category of low wing? Surely not!
(Note that the special benefits, i.e. visibility & efficiency, of a shoulder wing apply mainly to light aircraft; large aircraft may choose a shoulder wing for their own reasons).
Sorry to have appeared to enter an "edit war", but (as a shoulder-wing pilot) I do feel I reasonably qualified to comment. No offence meant! Arrivisto ( talk) 12:16, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
Hi, By the way, can anyone please supply a citation to support this statement: "A shoulder wing is like a high-wing, in producing a pendulous fuselage requiring no wing dihedral; and its limited ground effect reduces float on landing"? Arrivisto ( talk) 12:44, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
At last I see where you've been coming from! I agree with you that on a large aircraft, the significance of a shoulder wing is negligible and it may as well be deemed a sub-type of high wing; it's just that on a small 2-seater like the ARV (or Saab or Bolkow), the significance is huge. cheers Arrivisto ( talk) 15:01, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
and here we are having the same old discussion. I maintain that there are (at least) two mildly incompatible usages of the term "high wing" and that readers need to be told about both, while Arrivisto ( talk seems to favour a single PoV. I can only ask, has something changed in the last two years to invalidate the other PoV? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 19:38, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
A canard (lifting or not) surface looks like a stabilizer (same general dimensions) but is NOT stabilizing at all; as located ahead of the CG, it is strongly destabilizing. It provides added lift and/or pitch control. The aft wing (the horizontal tail or the main wing in the canard case) IS always the stabilizing surface. The pitch stability comes from the lift slope difference between the front and the back surfaces. Plxd ( talk) 12:26, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
Wikipedia must respect normal use of language, "stabiliser" is recognized even by the spell checker in this Wikipedia edit window as a typo. Try "stabilizer". If you try searching on Google the vote is 57 million to 9 million. It is not acceptable to propagate errors of language in a reference work. Correcting common misunderstandings is part of the educational function of a reference work. -- Stodieck ( talk) 18:03, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
"Horizontal stabiliZer" is better than "tailplane" because it is somewhat self-defining and less prone to misunderstandings. It is the "technical term".
Horizontal stabilizers are not required to have a slope difference to be stabilizing, this is not dihedral. They normally have a negative lift to hold the nose of an airplane up if the center of gravity is located ahead of the center of lift of the main wing. Having the center of gravity is located ahead of the center of lift is what creates stability. The negative lift is actually a pitch control function not part of the stabilization. The horizontal stabilizers on some three surface aircraft are in fact normally flown at neutral lift. Something you could read about in this article if Steelpillow hadn't deleted the entries and citations on three-surface and 3-lifting-surface aircraft "wholesale" from this article.
"find a generic word for both fore- and tail-mounted auxiliary horizontal planes" Using "forward wing" or "small forward wing" instead of "canard" helps reduce confusion immensely. As things are, canard should always be qualified. I.e. "canard wing" or "canard aircraft" Tailplane is really OK as it is, but people misuse it.
I suggest that this section heading be changed to Horizontal stabilizer configurations. That what the section addresses not Horizontal stabilizers. -- Stodieck ( talk) 18:16, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Allow me to explain why I undid an edit by 'Steelpillow'
Most simply, the point/reference about 'semi-elliptical' wings - if you look carefully, the statement in the reference is to the SEV-3 not the P-35. I'm no expert in this mark, & they do appear to be related, but they are not the same, so this doesn't really qualify as a suitable reference.
More importantly, as regards to the meaning of an 'elliptical' wing. It can be shown that if the lift distribution of a wing(s) varies elliptically from tip to tip, the down wash generated will be uniform & the induced drag will be minimised for the lift. I have my lecture notes as a source for this, but it isn't really appropriate as a wikipedia reference. From an aerodynamic perspective, it doesn't matter how this distribution is achieved. Therefore to claim that having a wing with curved leading & trailing edges is required in order to maximise aerodynamic efficiency is rather flawed. The fact is, the wing is elliptical so long as the shape (not size) of the cross section remains constant & the chord length (and hence local wing area & lift) varies elliptically from tip to tip. It doesn't matter if the leading, trailing or both edge(s) are curved, the wing will still be 'elliptical;' the term 'semi-elliptical' has no aerodynamic meaning (if you think about it, the spitfire doesn't have (geometrically) elliptical wings - they are in fact 2 semi-ellipse with different eccentricity, joined along the lateral axis - one of these semi-ellipses could just as well have an eccentricity of 1, i.e. a straight line segment). Similarly, the lift distribution could be achieved with constant cord, but having the wing twist at an appropriate rate from root to tip, so that the root is at a greater angle of attack than the tip. While this isn't an issue of planform, it is to an extent a feature of the wings' configuration & is certainly pertinent in the context of a claim of being "Aerodynamically the most efficient."
Another point to consider (though not directly relevant to this article) is that by having the wing twist down towards the tips - when the aircraft's angle of attach is increased, the root will have a higher angle of attach than the tip, so the roots will stall first, with the stall gradually spreading towards the tips - with the tips still developing lift, the aircraft will remain stable in roll. With an elliptical planform (& the necessary uniform angle of attach) the entire wing will stall at the same angle of attack, or in reality, one wing will stall entirely, slightly before the other, putting the aircraft into a spin. So while an elliptical wing might be "aerodynamically the most efficient," it isn't necessarily the best, so shouldn't be stated as such without qualification - this would be misleading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.229.172.13 ( talk) 15:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)
While on the subject of wing planforms - does anyone know if a wing made up of a constant chord center section with tapered outer panels constitutes a less extreme variant on the compound taper or something different? It should be mentioned as a considerable number of aircraft used this planform in the late 30s and early 40s (T-6/Harvard, C-47, Lancaster, Avenger, Halifax, etc), even if it doesn't have a distinct name in the literature. Unfortunately all the books I have that mention planforms are either somewhat simplistic and mention only a few examples of different planforms before moving on, or they jump right into the calculations, covering all of the possibilities without explicitly naming them. Then there is the case of the Junkers 88 with three different leading edge sweepback angles, and two trailing edge angles. A simplified elipse as it were. NiD.29 ( talk) 05:24, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
How does Modified tapered wing sound? NiD.29 ( talk) 14:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)
This article has grown larger than I expected, with shedloads of images to upload. Would it benefit from splitting into several smaller pages? For example the section on Wing planform is much the biggest and might easily be given its own page. What do you think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 11:21, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
My original intention was to classify and illustrate the significant wing configurations, and set them in context rather than just list them. Turned out to be more of them than I expected, and I added the idea of linking to at least one example of each, but I think the rest of the idea was good. So - a summary is hard because what do you leave out and how do you provide a hook to weird names that aren't obvious where they belong (such as rhomboidal)? And what angle do you take on it; structural, aerodynamic, planespotting? A list leaves you wondering why people built that stuff and did it work, it's just not informative. I don't see the few words here on dihedral as competing with the main article. And if some people think its current size is OK, then maybe that answers my question the easy way - it's not going to grow much any more. So, maybe there's no problem after all. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:40, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
Contrary to recent edits, the canard surface appeared as a stabiliser on the WWII Kyushu J7W and several of Rutan's postwar models such as the VariEze and many others. It is important to note that the "tandem triple" descriptions are modernisms and that historically the small surfaces were not though of as "wings" but ancillary surfaces for control and stabilisation: the "Canard" section is the wrong place for this. The tandem triple entry has also grown far too long. All this was stitched through by less drastic edits, which may be more easily restored or re-done individually than unpicked from the mass off stuff that needed reverting. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 20:32, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
==Stop vandalizing my edits == canards are never stabilizers period. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Stodieck ( talk • contribs) 21:09, 16 May 2012
That is correct. That is why the Wrights abandoned canards with the model B. The pilot had to constantly level the plane by adjusting the angle of the canard while flying the model A.
When they are stable, Canards are stabilized by the aft surfaces of the main wing. Think of the tailless Concorde, and put a canard on it. If the canard is small enough no problem. If the canard is too large the plane becomes unstable. -- Stodieck ( talk) 14:50, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Mr. Hunt and I would like point out that my sources are the Wright brothers. And that Steelpillow cannot provide technical citations to the contrary. He can find articles that call canards stabilizers. Any article that explains how a horizontal stabilizer works also contains the evidence that canard wings are destabilizing. This has been pointed out by others in talk sessions with Steelpillow. If we cannot contain his edits, I will refrain from any other work in the Wiki. -- Stodieck ( talk) 05:56, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
"how to achieve stability using a canard foreplane: http://www.desktop.aero/appliedaero/configuration/canardstability.html and http://adamone.rchomepage.com/cg_canard.htm" If you work through these you will find that the secret to making stable "canard aircraft" is keeping the size of the "canard winglets" small enough to prevent them from destabilizing the whole "canard aircraft". I.e. passive "canard winglets" are alway destabilizing, "canard aircraft" are clearly not always unstable.
Canards winglets can be used as pitch control element for active stabilizer system. They not desirable from a reliability perspective. (Works just fine if you don't mind dying everytime the computer crashes.)
The problem with the term "canard" is that it is almost universally used without specifying whether we are referring to an aircraft configuration or a fin. As editors of the wikipedia I strongly suggest that we never allow the word canard to used without a qualifier; canard winglet, canard fin, canard aircraft, or canard configuration. This alias is deadly. "Small forward wing" helps reduce confusion about the fin type of "canard".
I am not being dogmatic about saying that "canards can never be stable", In fact I have never said this at all. I said that "canards" (intending to say small forward wings) are never stabilizers. That is to say, that, per se, they never add to the stability of an aircraft.
"Some airplanes ... get their stability from a much smaller wing (called a canard) in the front." http://www.av8n.com/how/htm/aoastab.html#sec-canard-same — This amateur author does not actually analyze stability. I would put this under self published references.
And at http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Theories_of_Flight/Stability_II/TH27.htm, "The North American XB-70 has a pair of canards for stability at supersonic speeds to prevent tuck under." This is a caption under a picture, not an encyclopedic reference. This statement is simply inacurate and suggests that tuck under is an instability. I believe that tuck under is quite stable, it is not an instability in the sense of this disscusion.
The theory of how horizontal stabilizers work has been known literally since the Wright brothers. It has been taught to millions as part of standard pilot training curriculum since that time. It is included in every book on aeronautics. There are 1000s of references. I would guess that there are a half million people in the US alone who understand, technically, why arrows don't have feathers on the front.
-- Stodieck ( talk) 17:34, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Now restore the 3-surface entries. You can't agree or disagree with material you have never seen before, and don't understand. And that is not sufficient criteria for removal in any case. -- Stodieck ( talk) 19:08, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Hence the neutral point for a conventional configuration lies aft of the wing’s aerodynamic center but the neutral point of a canard lies forward. That is the explicit realization of Bryan and Williams’ conclusion that the aft tail configuration is relatively more stable than the canard [if] the same surfaces are used. The more forward is the neutral point, the more difficult it is in practice to get a stable aircraft: the natural tendency during design and construction of an aircraft is for the cg to lie further aft than desirable.
Having slept on the problem, I'd suggest there are two distinct points of view here:
[Update] Or, to put it another way, there is a difference between the design purpose of a feature and the technical mechanism which delivers the outcome. Both are valid on their own terms.
While Wikipedia undeniably aims to be a reference work, such works can have different scope. A text book may give a word a precise technical meaning, while a dictionary might record several different usages of the word in different contexts. A general encyclopedia such as this one will explain the more notable usages defined in the dictionary or, as we put it, respect different points of view.
So, does respect for both points of view here represent a reasonable strategy? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 12:20, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Reread the paragraph above your last paragraph, starting with "I don't recall anyone saying that canard aircraft are intrinsically unstable". Your attacking a statement that has not been made. Also, neither my version, nor Steelpillow's reversion of the Canard entry under "horizontal stabilizers" describes canard winglets as stabilizers. Please difference the revision history before and after the "wholesale revision of edits" to see what was actually changed. This discussion has gotten lost. Turn your attention to the inclusion of 3lsc aircraft that was also deleted by Steelpillow in this edit. -- 208.74.180.13 ( talk) 00:25, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
"Not all canards have negative pitch stability (some do, some don't - it's a design issue" - You are referring to canard aircraft, canard winglets are always destabilizing. If the center of gravity moves forward after the addition of canard winglets, the main wing becomes a stabilizer. The canard winglets are just a lifting wing, never a stabilizer. This is what the deleted text stated. -- Stodieck ( talk) 15:21, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I am (not very) astonished to see what is a relatively technical discussion supposedly aided by references to captions on photos. From a control viewpoint a lightly loaded forward horizontal surface would have to have a lift gain in pitch significantly less (due to pitching moment, and the drag of the little wing, which is destabilising in its own right) than that of the main wing in response to small perturbations in AoA from a trimmed condition, in the linear range. This is rather unlikely in a passive system, to put it mildly. I'd have thought a search of the LARC/NACA/NASA archives would be more productive than random hits on blogs. NACA 941 and NASA X 823 are a good starting point. The Culick paper is also fine, presumably the editor denigrating it didn't bother to read it, as it discusses the history of the issue, not just Wright's understanding. Greglocock ( talk) 02:13, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
One of my contributions eliminated by this wholesale reversion was the inclusion of "3 lifting surface" and "three surface" aircraft. I have done some googling on the prevalence of these terms and the terms used instead in the current "horizontal stabilizer" section of the Wikipedia article.
"tandem triple" aircraft 7,220 hits (Wikipedia leads the way)
"3 lifting surface" aircraft 10,600,000 hits
"three surface" aircraft 63,900 hits
"triplet" aircraft produces millions of hits, none of which seem to refer to actual aircraft
It is very clear, from the number of hits on valid citations within these searches that the aircraft design establishment usually uses "3 lifting surface" or 3lsc first, followed by "three surface" aircraft. Neither triplet nor tandem triplet have significant usage. I suggest that the terms 3 lifting surface", 3lsc, and "three surface" replace "tandem triple" and "triplet". "Tandem triple" is quite suspicious since the wing configuration diagram it refers to is not a tandem.
The following article may be of interest here. [ Who Fooled Wikipedia]
OK, so I edited back the scope because there are so many reasons put forward for this configuration. That kind of suggests it needs its own article, too. Then I thought to check those search hits quoted above, and Google found:
So then I also tried:
I find the differences remarkable: even searching on "3 lifting surface" alone gave just 11,700 hits, so I do wonder which search engine found over ten million, or whether perhaps that was a typing error? One trusts that the Who Fooled Wikipedia link below it was posted in good faith. ;-)
Anyway, it is not clear which is the winner here so some careful digging for reliable references is going to be needed. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 21:16, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
"3 lifting surface" aircraft 10,600,000 hits is what happens when google removes the quotes and one fails to notice. -- Stodieck ( talk) 00:53, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Am I alone in thinking the slip wing (as per the Hillson Slip-wing Hurricane & Bi-mono) should be listed? It took off as a biplane and then jetisoned the top wing to continue as a monoplane so as to increase the possible takeoff weight... NiD.29 ( talk) 23:31, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
____ -----||--||--- ==---||--||-== || ===||
I had the airfix kit when I was a kid, and I removed the pod and reattached the wing parts to convert it into a normal aircraft. NiD.29 ( talk) 20:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Revert to last good edit? You reverted a whole series of good edits. I can't use the words I'd like to use for that insulting unwarranted,
WP:OWN-ish comment (and the reverts).
The edits I made fixed a slew of egregous errors and replaced poor examples with better ones - you didn't even have the decency to check if the changes were warranted.
Many of the examples are obvious only to specialists in violation of wiki policy, rather than those that might be familiar to non-specialists visiting this page - such as the Cessna (150, 172 etc) versus the P-80 which most Americans wouldn't even recognize anymore and the EE Lightning (which is a special case not otherwise covered as it is a type of cropped delta - or so I have read) vs. one of the many Boeings or Airbuses - or indeed any of the long list of aircraft that would make better examples.
Etc etc...
A sesquiplane is defined by wing area - not span. It applies to aircraft with either reduced span or chord as per any reputable source you may deign to check such as (Gunston, Bill, The Cambridge Aerospace Dictionary Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004,
ISBN
978-0-521-84140-5, page.552) which says - "Biplane whose lower wing has less than half the area of the upper." (bolding mine)
The F-111 was hardly the first military swing wing - the
Grumman XF10F Jaguar beat it into the air by 15 years.
Saying the Crusader lifts the leading edge is misleading - it rotates the whole wing, causing the leading edge to raise. The difference is that leading edge devices of some sort are allowed for in the original statement when it is really just rotating about its rear wing spar.
Etc etc...
Excellent work on the drawings but you need to let others make substantive improvements to the text.
NiD.29 (
talk) 18:31, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
Steelpillow, you said to "discuss first", but the be bold edict specifically contradicts this. No editor is ever required to discuss an edit before making it, particularly not IP's. No one needs to get permission from anybody. Ahunt, you reactively declared my edits "unhelpful", apparently with little actual examination of them, and you tried to enforce Steelpillow's admonishment to discuss by artificially creating the first steps toward an edit war. You both have behaved in a way that suggests you feel like you own the article, or at least are reactively biased against IP edits.
I've found there's not much anybody can do about this. If one or two editors want to own an obscure article they can, even though it is against WP policy. I made one last attempt to improve the section. I integrated polyhedral, and made a few formatting improvements (like scooting the channel-wing diagram below it's description). I retained the removal of those two off-topic inline citations to "cranked arrow". I simplified the "do not confuse with cranked arrow planform" message in a way that (I think) doesn't actually add to the confusion like (I think) the previous wording did.
If you want to summary revert that too, you probably can, but I don't recommend it. Instead, please carefully review it, and edit your improvements into it. It really is better than it was before, and you can make it even better by adding your perspective to it, rather than just naysaying.
108.7.243.154 ( talk) 17:24, 30 June 2012 (UTC)
Ahunt, sorry if I swept you up in implying you were attempting to own the article. Nobody really has the time to review past histories, only the time to assess the recent edit. The apparent tag-team effort did me give that impression. Your "unhelpful" remark in your reversion edit summary did contribute strongly to my perception that you did not assume good faith.
Steelpillow, yes it is sometimes easier to revert. I've done it in the past, but I've found that it's important to be really really nice about it.
But, I have more to do in my life than to get muddy in fights like this. You win. I won't touch this page again.
Yours, 108.7.243.154 ( talk) 00:32, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd add the Rogallo wing, that is some kind of a Delta wing, but soft; as example of Circular wing, the American Nemuth Parasol; as a Semicircular wing, the Arup's flying wings and the Navy's Flying Pancake; as an unclassifiable or inverted Delta, the straight part as leading edge (It would be good having specific professional comments about the advantages, disadvantages and performances of the Inverted Delta), the 1934 design of Raoul J. Hoffman (Popular Aviation, March 1935, pp 163 and 196), and also one of the Fauvel flying wings, the AV-10; in YouTube, linked to the Arup airplanes' films, some other low aspect ratio Inverted Delta-like wings appear. There was another example of Annular wing, similar to the French Coleoptere and to 1906 Louis Bleriot's 'Bleriot III' that Bleriot designed for water takeoff and landing; this Annular wing toy airplane had an ordinary chord and conventional tail surfaces, it was proposed in the April 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics to be built by hobbyists. The July 1964 Issue of Popular Mechanics features a Pancake or Parasol wing model airplane. The 1909 French airplane Givaudan had tandem round wings. The first variable swept wing jet airplane was the Messerchmitt P.1101, that inspired the early USA designs, however, the first attempts were unstable, and the problem was not solved until a short, fixed high swept back section was added to the root of wings. The Burnelli's lifting fuselages can be considered another special type of wing? Some data exist about fully flying disc shaped aircraft, as in Popular Mechanics Jan 1995 and Nov 2000.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 18:31, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
The book "German Jet Genesis", by David Masters, Jane's 1982, ISBN 0 7106 0186 7, includes drawings of three German flying disks designs from the last months of WWII: the Miethe, the Habermohl and the Schriever; other sources say that the Schriever reached the flight stage, going well above the speed of sound, but was deliberately destroyed before falling in the hands of the allies. It was said also that Schriever, that after the war relocated in Austria, offered to build again a copy of his saucer for a very low cost, but found no support. The March 1956 issue of "Mechanix Illustrated" -MI- has in the cover a drawing of an U.S. Air Force Flying Saucer Project, and in pp 78-81, the inherent technology in it, mainly jet engines, thrust control and Coanda effect for handling. From where or what they had the idea of building a thing so shaped remains unknown to me. In 1964, Popular Mechanics -PM- published an article about the research conducted by major Seversky on a flying machine, round in shape and with a wire structure close to the one in an umbrella, supposed to fly on the principle of conservation of momentum by sending down a flow of ionized air, idea that failed because the inherent physics never reaching a sufficient degree of efficacy in transforming electrical power into lift; the November 1964 PM issue -Spanish edition- containing this flying object also included an article on air pollution that, in addition of describing the California "Chemical Smogs", warned against the global warming effects of the continuously increasing concentration of atmospheric CO2 due to mankind's activities, from 290 ppm in 1890 to 315 ppm then. In the Moller website and in YouTube, you can see a USA prototype of flying disc apparently using the basis depicted in MI-March 1956, hardly achieving a several feet height uncontrollabe hovering over the ground.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 21:15, 21 October 2012 (UTC)
Canard : the Saab Viggen canard provides lift and pitch control; it is a destabilizing surface.
Tandem : both wings provide lift (like a lifting canard); the front wing is destabilizing like a canard, the aft wing IS the stabiliser (like a taiplane). Plxdesi2 ( talk) 21:53, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
From "Proposed strategy" :
"When the CG is behind the neutral point the destabilising influence of the main wing exceeds the stabilising influence of the canard. I see nothing in Culick to indicate the canard should not be described as a stabiliser".
Dolphin (
t) 22:49, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
@Steelpillow. "no need to mention "lift" twice (also, the Viggen predates modern analysis).
The aircraft mounts missiles ahead of the wing. If it retains level flight at all, it is due to lift from the canards. Hcobb ( talk) 20:51, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
The French 'Aviation Magazine International' nº 602, 15-31 Jan 1973, has a description of the results with different arrangements of the foreplane, regarding the Saab Viggen, by J Gambu and J Perard, and the Feb 23, 1985 issue of Flight International, an article by B R A Burns 'Canards design with care'; the Curtiss XP 55 Ascender featured a variable incidence foreplane with elevons in the trailing edge, and the modern Rafale and Eurofighter install inverted Vee fully moveable foreplanes, but without elevons; tailplanes in the V shape (Beechcraft) or foreplanes in an A configuration (Curtiss XP 55) act also as rudders.-- Jgrosay ( talk) 18:48, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the 3-view and other images suggest that it is a lifting canard. Whatever, the whole description is peripheral to this article, so I have deleted it. Effort can be better spent correcting the misdirections and falsehoods in the main Saab 37 Viggen article. — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 13:43, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
Are Winglets to be included here ? Plxdesi2 ( talk) 09:48, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
as used on the Short SB.1 & 4 (Sherpa) experimental aircraft needs including, along with a matching image. Unfortunately I don't have much on it - is there a straight wing version? NiD.29 ( talk) 01:53, 24 August 2013 (UTC)
As for sources... - Barnes, C.H.; Shorts Aircraft since 1900, Naval Institute Press, Maryland, 1989 ISBN 0870216627 pages 441-443 (or the British edition - not sure if that changes the page numbering...). Cheers, NiD.29 ( talk) 18:54, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
This is fascinating stuff, for sure, but I came to this page looking for different forms of wings in animals. Should that get added to this page or made a separate page? I guess it would depend on how many different designs there are or something? And what about dandelion seeds and the like. It kind of looks like those fluff balls are made up of lots of wing-like structures. Would that count? Um the Muse ( talk) 03:18, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The "changes in center of gravity with changing speed due to wing bending moments, along with a number of other advantages" are caused by aeroelastic effects. The cited sources make this clear. (There are some other effects which may be good or bad depending on the given design). Maury Markowitz ( talk · contribs) does not seem to understand this and insists on adding the long version quoted, which highlights an arbitrary effect, I am trying to restore something closer to the original wording along the lines of "the undesirable effects of aeroelastic bending". This is both shorter and less biased towards one particular effect, altogether more encyclopedic and easier to read. What do others think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 22:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
The B-70 Valkyrie used waveriding, aka compression lift, in cruise. The purpose of this is not to increase the net lift as such, but to allow the craft to be trimmed to a lower AoA which reduces net drag while maintaining the same lift. Maury Markowitz ( talk · contribs) does not understand this and insists on adding a longer and incorrect statement, saying that the waveriding effect is used to increase lift as well as to reduce drag. What do others think? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 22:44, 11 November 2015 (UTC)
This article is a summary list of many things with just enough information on each to make the point, it does not go into detail on any of them. Aspect ratios need to be kept to low, medium and high, nothing less general than that. The images are just sketches and can change at any time, I have indeed changed a good few of them over the years: nobody can rely on them for detail measurements, so special images would need to be prepared. The place for such measured images and associated numbers would be in the main article on Aspect ratio (aeronautics), which is only one click away. Does anybody still have a problem with that? — Cheers, Steelpillow ( Talk) 17:40, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
I have one question: in the German Wikipedia the Grumman F6F Hellcat is described as a Low wing monoplane (in contrast to the predecessor model F4F Wildcat as Mid wing). Also in the German Wikipedia the P-47 is described as a Mid wing monoplane. Comparing these two planes (F6F and P-47) show that both planes are similar constructed. My question is: what is the correct specification of the F6F Hellcat? Low or Mid wing? -- Peettriple ( talk) 08:06, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
How do varying incidence and thickness change the chord? Thanks. Pieter1963 ( talk) 00:20, 18 September 2021 (UTC)
what's the difference please between wings with straight, rectangular (relative to the fuselage, regarding planform) leading edge and tapered trailing edge (e.g. https://www.williamssoaring.com/images/fleet-images/ask21-planform-450x.jpg) vs. the opposite (e.g. https://www.j2mcl-planeurs.net/dbj2mcl/planeurs-machines/3vues/Masak_Scimitar-I_3v.jpg) vs. symetrically tapered wings (planform) (e.g. https://cdn.britannica.com/63/189163-050-C6C43205/Glider.jpg)? advantages and disadvantages? and what's the effect of flaps coming down with type one, especially if it's a plane with short, stubby wings and strong tapering? the air-flow should be directed away from the wing-tips towards the fuselage reducing the wing-tip-vortex...? thanx! HilmarHansWerner ( talk) 11:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)
The result of the move request was: Not moved. WP:SNOW oppose and zero rationale given, no need to waste time going through the motions. ( non-admin closure) ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ ( ᴛ) 05:43, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
Wing configuration → Wing-body-tail configuration – Please place your rationale for the proposed move here. Halfcookie ( talk) 12:44, 27 January 2024 (UTC)