Aircraft designers have long pursued wings that can adapt to changing flight conditions. Fixed surfaces are always a compromise: a wing shape optimized for takeoff is rarely ideal for cruise, and one ...

Engineers are closing in on a long imagined goal in aviation, wings that can subtly change shape in midair instead of relying on rigid flaps and heavy hydraulics. The key is a family of “metals with ...

A team of researchers at Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) has created a nature-inspired active metal metamaterial that could enable shape-shifting aircraft wings. The material ...

The Vought V-173 “Flying Pancake” was one of WWII’s strangest aircraft experiments. Discover why the U.S. Navy tested this ...

Inspired by the Portulaca oleracea seedcoat, metamaterials fabricated by laser powder bed fusion realized tunable in-plane mechanical properties, large deformation recovery capability and functional ...

A team of engineers has built and tested a new kind of airplane wing, assembled from hundreds of tiny identical pieces. The wing can change shape to control the plane’s flight, and could provide a ...

Today, aircraft wings are increasingly designed to prioritize stealth characteristics over raw speed—giving them a smooth, unbroken connection to the aircraft’s main fuselage. The wing of a fighter ...

NASA's green aviation project is one step closer to developing technology that could make future airliners quieter and more fuel-efficient with the successful flight test of a wing surface that can ...