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A flying wing is a type of tailless aircraft which has no distinct fuselage. The crew, engines and equipment are housed inside a thick wing, typically showing small nacelles, blisters and other housings.
| Type | Country | Class | Role | Date | Status | No. | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52 | UK | Jet | Experimental | 1947 | Prototype | 2 | Twin engined. |
| BAE Systems Taranis | UK | Jet | UAV | 2013 | Prototype | n/a | |
| Bell D-35 | US | Jet | Fighter | 1945 | Prototype | n/a | Twin engined. |
| Boeing Phantom Ray | US | Jet | UAV | 2011 | Prototype | n/a | |
| Chyeranovskii BICh-3 | USSR | Propeller | Experimental | 1926 | Prototype | 1 | |
| Dassault nEUROn | France | Jet | UAV | 2012 | Prototype | n/a | stealth |
| Delft Flying-V | Netherlands | Ducted fan | UAV | 2020 | Experimental | 1 | Scale model of proposed airliner |
| DRDO Ghatak | India | Jet | UCAV | 2022 | Prototype | 1 | Scaled down technology demonstrator |
| Farrar V-1 Flying Wing | US | Glider | Homebuilt | 1962 | Prototype | 1 | |
| Freel Flying Wing | US | Glider | Homebuilt | 1937 | Prototype | 1 | School project |
| Horten H.I | Germany | Glider | Experimental | 1933 | Prototype | 2 | |
| Horten H.II | Germany | Glider | Experimental | 1935 | Prototype | 4 | |
| Horten H.III | Germany | Glider | Experimental | 1937 | Prototype | 19 | 1 modified as motorglider |
| Horten H.IV | Germany | Glider | 1941 | Prototype | 4 | IV and IVa had a fuselage. | |
| Horten H.Va, b, c | Germany | Propeller | Experimental | 1937 | Prototype | 2 | Twin engined |
| Horten H.VII | Germany | Propeller | Trainer | 1942 | Prototype | 2 | Twin engined |
| Horten Ho 229 (H.IX) | Germany | Jet | Fighter | 1944 | Prototype | n/a | Two flown |
| Horten H.X | Germany | Jet | Fighter | Project | 0 | ||
| Horten H.XI | Germany | Glider | n/a | ||||
| Horten H.XII | Germany | Propeller | Experimental | 1944 | Project | 0 | Powered H IVb with laminar flow wing |
| Horten H.XIV | Germany | Glider | Experimental | 1945 | n/a | ||
| Horten H.XVIII | Germany | Jet | Bomber | 1945 | Project | 0 | |
| Horten Parabola | Germany | Glider | Experimental | 1938 | Project | 0 | Built but not flown. |
| Kayaba Ku-4 | Japan | Propeller | Fighter | 1940 | Project | 0 | |
| Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel | US | UAV | Reconnaissance | 1991 | Production | 20 ca. | |
| Kalinin K-12 | Russia | Propeller | Bomber | 1937 | Prototype | 1 | |
| McDonnell Douglas A-12 Avenger II | US | Jet | Attack | 2007 | Project | 0 | |
| Northrop B-2 Spirit | US | Jet | Bomber | 1989 | Production | 21 | |
| Northrop Grumman B-21 Raider | US | Jet | Bomber | Current | Project | 1 | |
| Northrop N-1M | US | Propeller | Experimental | 1940 | Prototype | 1 | |
| Northrop N-9M | US | Propeller | Experimental | 1942 | Prototype | 4 | |
| Northrop XP-79 | US | Jet | Fighter | 1945 | Prototype | 1 | |
| Northrop XB-35 & YB-35 | US | Propeller | Bomber | 1945 | Prototype | n/a | |
| Northrop YB-49 | US | Jet | Bomber | 1947 | Prototype | 3 | Converted YB-35. [1] |
| Northrop Grumman Switchblade | US | Jet | UAV | 2008 | Project | 0 | |
| NRC tailless glider | Canada | Glider | Research | 1946 | Prototype | 1 | |
| Putilov Stal-5 | USSR | Propeller | Transport | 1933 | Project | 0 | 18 passengers, scale model flown 1935. |
| Saegheh | Iran | Jet | UAV | 2018 | Production | n/a | |
| Sukhoi S-70 Okhotnik | Russia | Jet | UAV | 2019 | Prototype | 1 | stealth |
| Mikoyan Skat | Russia | Jet | UAV | n/a | Prototype | n/a | stealth |
| Vought V-173 | US | Propeller | Experimental | 1942 | Prototype | 1 | Circular wing. |
| Vought XF5U | US | Propeller | Fighter | 1947 | Project | 0 | Failed to fly |
| TAI Anka-3 | Turkey | Jet | UCAV | 2022 | Prototype | 1 | First prototype flown |
An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships, gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.
A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expressed as its lift-to-drag ratio. The lift a wing generates at a given speed and angle of attack can be one to two orders of magnitude greater than the total drag on the wing. A high lift-to-drag ratio requires a significantly smaller thrust to propel the wings through the air at sufficient lift.
A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using aerodynamic lift. Fixed-wing aircraft are distinct from rotary-wing aircraft, and ornithopters. The wings of a fixed-wing aircraft are not necessarily rigid; kites, hang gliders, variable-sweep wing aircraft, and airplanes that use wing morphing are all classified as fixed wing.
The wingspan of a bird or an airplane is the distance from one wingtip to the opposite wingtip. For example, the Boeing 777–200 has a wingspan of 60.93 metres, and a wandering albatross caught in 1965 had a wingspan of 3.63 metres, the official record for a living bird. The term wingspan, more technically extent, is also used for other winged animals such as pterosaurs, bats, insects, etc., and other aircraft such as ornithopters. In humans, the term wingspan also refers to the arm span, which is the distance between the length from the end of an individual's arm to the individual's fingertips on the other arm when raised parallel to the ground at shoulder height.
The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull. The fuselage also serves to position the control and stabilization surfaces in specific relationships to lifting surfaces, which is required for aircraft stability and maneuverability.
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing. Whereas a flying wing seeks to maximize cruise efficiency at subsonic speeds by eliminating non-lifting surfaces, lifting bodies generally minimize the drag and structure of a wing for subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight, or spacecraft re-entry. All of these flight regimes pose challenges for proper flight safety.
A flying wing is a tailless fixed-wing aircraft that has no definite fuselage, with its crew, payload, fuel, and equipment housed inside the main wing structure. A flying wing may have various small protuberances such as pods, nacelles, blisters, booms, or vertical stabilizers.
In fluid dynamics, angle of attack is the angle between a reference line on a body and the vector representing the relative motion between the body and the fluid through which it is moving. Angle of attack is the angle between the body's reference line and the oncoming flow. This article focuses on the most common application, the angle of attack of a wing or airfoil moving through air.
The Boeing X-48 is an American experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built to investigate the characteristics of blended wing body (BWB) aircraft. Boeing designed the X-48 and two examples were built by Cranfield Aerospace in the UK. Boeing began flight testing the X-48B version for NASA in 2007. The X-48B was later modified into the X-48C version, which was flight tested from August 2012 to April 2013. Boeing and NASA plan to develop a larger BWB demonstrator.
Sponsons are projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or watercraft to provide protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons or other devices, or equipment housing.
The Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" was an experimental U.S. Navy fighter aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman for Vought during World War II. This unorthodox design consisted of a flat, somewhat disc-shaped body serving as the lifting surface. Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge, at the wingtips.
An airplane or aeroplane, informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and wing configurations. The broad spectrum of uses for airplanes includes recreation, transportation of goods and people, military, and research. Worldwide, commercial aviation transports more than four billion passengers annually on airliners and transports more than 200 billion tonne-kilometers of cargo annually, which is less than 1% of the world's cargo movement. Most airplanes are flown by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed to be remotely or computer-controlled such as drones.
Wing warping was an early system for lateral (roll) control of a fixed-wing aircraft or kite. The technique, used and patented by the Wright brothers, consisted of a system of pulleys and cables to twist the trailing edges of the wings in opposite directions. In many respects, this approach is similar to that used to trim the performance of a paper airplane by curling the paper at the back of its wings.
A blended wing body (BWB), also known as blended body, hybrid wing body (HWB) or a lifting aerofoil fuselage, is a fixed-wing aircraft having no clear dividing line between the wings and the main body of the craft. The aircraft has distinct wing and body structures, which are smoothly blended together with no clear dividing line. This contrasts with a flying wing, which has no distinct fuselage, and a lifting body, which has no distinct wings. A BWB design may or may not be tailless.
Gliding flight is heavier-than-air flight without the use of thrust; the term volplaning also refers to this mode of flight in animals. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. This mode of flight involves flying a significant distance horizontally compared to its descent and therefore can be distinguished from a mostly straight downward descent like a round parachute.
The Vought V-173 "Flying Pancake" is an American experimental test aircraft built as part of the Vought XF5U program during World War II.
A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining the altitude with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch.
The Convair Model 118 ConvAirCar was a prototype flying car of which two were built. Intended for mainstream consumers, two prototypes were built and flown. The first prototype was lost in an accident due to fuel exhaustion. Subsequently, the second prototype was rebuilt from the damaged aircraft and flown. By that time, little enthusiasm remained for the project and the program ended shortly thereafter.
Flight dynamics in aviation and spacecraft, is the study of the performance, stability, and control of vehicles flying through the air or in outer space. It is concerned with how forces acting on the vehicle determine its velocity and attitude with respect to time.
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