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THE OBLIQUE FLYING WING TRANSPORT

A. Van der Velden Synaps Inc., Atlanta, GA, USA

19.1 Introduction In the last thirty-five years there have been numerous attempts to design an economicallarge long range supersonic transport aircraft. However, aircraft design tearns around the world have not been successful at designing a 'Concorde' type large long range supersonic transport with realistic technology assumptions. It therefore seems only natural to Iook for other configurations that might fullfil this specification. The oblique flying wing configuration presented in this paper is unusual but we will show that it makes sense from both a technical and economical perspective. Figure 115 shows the first oblique wing design. It was proposed by two Frenchmen, Edmond de Marcay and Emile Moonen around 1912 [402]. They saw the oblique position ofthe wing as a means to land the low speed aircraft of their time in the presence of crosswind without sideslipping the wing. In the decades to follow oblique wings were used to simulate sideslip in a windtunnel. lt was not until 1943-1944 that engineers at Messerschmitt and Blohm & Voss combined the newly discovered phenomena of high speed drag reduction and wing sweep with the 'old' sideslipping wing. After WWII Richard Vogt of Blohm & Voss showed the oblique wing designs to R.T. Jones of NACA. Dr. Jones became convinced of the merits of this configuration and has actively pursued it until today. During the 1960's and 1970's he convinced many engineers at NASA, Boeing and Rockweil to study this exotic aircraft. H. Sobieczky (ed.), New Design Concepts for High Speed Air Transport © Springer-Verlag Wien 1997

Alexander Van der Velden

292

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Figure 115

First Oblique Wing Design (Courtesy: Steve Ransom)

Figure 116 shows the AD-1 the first full scale oblique wing aircraft designed by Burt Rutan. On the 21 December 1979 the AD-1 this aircraft made its first flight. Though the oblique wing-body was a success from a controls and aerodynamics point of view, it had poor structural qualities. The increase in structural weight due to the routing of the Ioads through the center pivot was not offsct by the high-speed drag reduction.

Figure 116

AD-1 by Rutan (1979)

293

The Oblique Flying Wing Transport

In 1958, R.T. Jones and Lee of Handley Page [399] bad proposed an even radical design that could overcome the high structural weight of the oblique wing body concept. Even though the design shown in Figure 117 was considered interesting, few have researched it since it was first proposed.

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Figure 117

Lee's Slewed Wing Transport Proposal (1961)

The only research on this configuration - as known to the author - was done by Smith [401] in the U.K. and R.T. Jones in the U.S.A. As shown, the aircraft cannot be controlled due to its aft center of gravity position, even with todays artifical stabilization technology. Because the payload does not efficiently fit the availabl