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.
A new report from the Government Accountability Office calls for the Pentagon’s Chief Technology Officer to have budget certification authority over the military services’ research and development accounts—a move the services say would add a burdensome and unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
