Fair enough as far as it goes - but wing design isn't all about aerodynamics when it comes to plan form. Inherent strength and consequent weight are equally, sometimes more, important. All forms of tapered or quasi-elliptical wings reduce maximum bending moment, increase bending strength and hence are most commonly used. Parallel wings delivering maximum lift usually need some form of structural intervention (struts) to produce a structurally efficient package, [A retired aircraft stress engineer]
@@sfzdgxfhycgjuvkyihopu For example, in plan-form: from the root of a 3m chord, a 10m leading edge radius, a 10m trailing edge radius and at the point of intersection a 0.5m blending radius. Look at the cross section of any large European petrol tanker. It will be a 3m top and bottom radius blended with a 2m side radius: nominally elliptical.
I suspect “as far as it goes” in this video was just the very beginning of a much longer, multi-topic discussion. This was just a teaser for courses at the web site.
Why does a perpendicular airflow increase the parasitic drag? You actually have a longer length over which the drag occurs on the tapper wing (for the same wing span). Is the drag from tip vortices reduced due to the higher aspect ratio near the wing tip?
Elliptical Planforms make approximately the same span wise lift distribution as the planform. Which may be "good" but is not ideal. A Bell shaped span wise lift distribution is actually ideal. Prandtl knew this back in the 30's.
I cannot wait until someone designs the first true variable geometry wing capable of automatically changing its shape to suit different types of flying. Utilizing shape memory alloys and polymers, or maybe even artificial muscles.
Must consider the economic aspects for leisure and commercial missions as well as the speed/altitude regime they will work on. Swept planforms and elliptical cost much more. Swept wings do not have good handling characteristics. Swept wings and swept tail feathers are actually worse performers at subsonic speeds under, say, Mach 0.6. For military applications, the price is of no consideration vs air superiority. Neither is the handling, unless you believe there will be dogfights in the future (highly unlikely, but possible)
Pretty much the only valid reason for wing sweep is to allow thicker wing sections to be flow at higher speeds than their critical Mach numbers for their respective thick-airfoil sections. e.g. an Airfoil that is 14% thickness to chord (height to length) might have a critical Mach number of 0.68 (68% the speed of sound). And an 9% Airfoil might have a critical mach number of 0.85. But a highly swept 14% thick Airfoil, which has more internal volume for structure and fuel, can attain the same Mach number speeds as a 9% Airfoil which has no sweep.
@@ChrisZoomER given this comment is 9 months old I think you might've watched that too, but there is also another video about forward swept wings, made by Real Engineering... and also one made by Millenium 7*
Wonder if there's a wing design that allows for both high speeds, maneuverability, and short take offs/landings. Like a swept wing... idk carbon cub? lol
there is a video made by Real Engineering and another one made by Millenium 7* that are very good to understand why it's such a controversial design. You can just search it on yt (I'm too lazy to link them lol)... but to sum it up, basically: the airflow impacts the wing from the tip, and then goes towards the root. What this means is that the stall will occur from the root of the wing, and then it will proceed outwards to the tip. This is very good at slow speeds and high angles of attack. However, when going at higher speeds, especially supersonic ones, the bending and twisting solicitations the wing is subject to become a big problem, along with drag, which is much greater.
