What advantages do variable foward swept "switch blade" wings provide?

What advantages do variable foward swept "switch blade" wings provide?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47
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They provide +2 agility

I've heard that forward swept wings give increased maneuverability at the expense of speed, but i don't really know.

>better high alpha performance
air flows inwards from the tip to the root instead of the other way, so ailerons remain in control at high angles of attack and nasty tip stalls become nice root stalls

>lower weight due to structural stuff

>less drag esp. at transonic speeds

The Wyvern is nice aerodynamically. Mechanically it makes no god damn sense. Your wings are normally where you store your fuel and there's also structural reinforcements there to compensate for wing loading. With a switch blade configuration they can only be a hollow shell to house the secondary wing. Then there's the issue of the mechanism along the leading edge of the wing that's supposed to be able to open and close without totally fucking up all of the aerodynamics.

FALKEN a best

- They look cool
- Make structural engineers cringe
- Hitler tried to make one

You can park them balanced on their front ends. That way you can put more on an aircraft carrier.

"The Su-47 has extremely high agility at subsonic speeds, enabling the aircraft to alter its angle of attack and its flight path very quickly while retaining maneuverability in supersonic flight. The Su-47 has a maximum speed of Mach 1.6 at high altitudes and a 9g capability.[7]

The swept-forward wing, compared to a swept-back wing of the same area, provides a number of advantages:[7]

higher lift-to-drag ratio
better agility in dogfight situations
higher range at subsonic speed
improved stall resistance and anti-spin characteristics
improved stability at high angles of attack
a lower minimum flight speed
a shorter take-off and landing distance"

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-47

This thread isn't about swept forward wings. It's about the variable geometry "switchblade" configuration. Specifically, this fictional aircraft (pic related). At supersonic speed the tail tucks in and the wing extensions fold into a storage compartment inside the main wing. The idea is low drag and high speed for interception, combined with high maneuverability for dogfighting.

Not that I'm convinced building it IRL would be possible though.

And here it is in its high speed configuation

gods I gotta get into aerospace design

It minimizes wingtip vorticies.

nothing wrong with thin wings. Wingtanks are common because its a large usable volume at the center of lift.

my thought is the forward sweep acts like an endplate and a diffuser at the same time.

most race cars have forward swept wings.

they make bitches wet

nazi engineering thread

> Schwerer Gustav

AHAH I failed so hard

>They provide +2 agility

this, desu.

>air flows inwards from the tip to the root instead of the other way, so ailerons remain in control at high angles of attack and nasty tip stalls become nice root stalls

There are some really simple ways to avoid root stalls, btw.

...

Breeeeeeeeeeee

The Tomcat had variable wing sweep, tho I don't think they actually went forward. But they know the tech works and the Tomcat had an outrageous kill/death rating compared to the MiG

I can't decide if this would be a better solution than what the birds ended up with. Arms can be used to dig and climb and hold prey, OTOH legwings would suck for trying to walk on.

I read somewhere they also got some nasty buffeting at high AoA due to interference of vortices from the strakes and main wing

Different aero dynamics, thus different something like glider... how do you call centre of gravity, is it a glider?

i think his point is if you're going to stall (you will eventually if you keep increasing AoA), you're better of to stall at the root

Root stall on a forward-swept wing is only a bit less nasty than a tip stall on a normal wing since the root part of the wing is behind the CG and the plane basically does a backflip when it loses the lift

I see. That also means the AoA increases and the effect is unstable right?

DUDE PLANES LMAO