Adaptive Wing for Future Surveillance Craft?

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.