dryden flight research center
NASA hurricane researchers eye Earl’s eye
Hurricane Earl, currently a Category Two storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 100 knots (115 miles per hour), continues to push relentlessly toward the U.S. East Coast, and NASA scientists, instruments and spacecraft…
Gonna fly now
It’s a technique Orville and Wilbur (God, I still love those names) Wright used a century ago to keep their early airplane afloat. Now the U.S. Air Force thinks it might have legs — or wings — again. It’s called wing warping. Instead of movable flaps and ailerons to steer and control a plane, warping bends the entire wing to achieve the desired effect. The Air Force has fancied it up a bit and redubbed it “active aeroelastic wing” technology. But the goal of its $41 million investment is, like the Brothers Wright, to produce lighter, more maneuverable planes. >> Related sites