Adaptive Wing for Future Surveillance Craft?

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org

Air Force Research Lab scientists have finished wind tunnel testing of an “adaptive compliant wing,” a flexible wing that can change shape during flight. Next up for the technology being developed by Michigan-based FlexSys, Inc. is a flight test this month aboard Scaled Composites’ White Knight aircraft. Researchers expect the flight tests to provide much colder temperatures and a different flow measurement for the flexible wing technology, which AFRL expects to employ on a future concept vehicle—the SensorCraft—for high-altitude, long endurance surveillance.

Audio of this article is brought to you by the Air & Space Forces Association, honoring and supporting our Airmen, Guardians, and their families. Find out more at afa.org