The flying wing design is niche and rare today, but the concept has been the focus of study for 100 years.

The flying wing design is intuitive but relatively rare. As the name implies, a flying wing aircraft is simply a wing; it has no discernible fuselage, no tail, and everything from crew to ordnance to fuel carried within the wing itself.

The aerodynamic advantages of flying wings have been known for decades, but because of the technical challenges associated with creating one, few have ever flown. Today, the only successful flying wing aircraft is the B-2 Spirit, soon to be replaced by another flying wing, the B-21 Raider. Let’s take a closer look at the features and characteristics of this unique design. 

Why Would Anyone Make a Plane Out of Just a Wing?

In theory, the flying wing is the lowest-drag aircraft ever designed. A conventional aircraft has a fuselage held aloft by attached wings and guided by a tail; both of these surfaces create aerodynamic drag as air is forced out of the way. By virtue of its need to hold passengers or cargo, an aircraft’s fuselage is very large and bulky. With the body of the aircraft packed into the wing, this problem is eliminated, improving efficiency.

But the reduction in drag comes with a major trade-off: instability. The flying wing design lacks most traditional control surfaces and can be extremely difficult to control. And while the flying wing is low-drag, that characteristic does not translate into impressively high speed. As aircraft approach the sound barrier, Bernoulli’s principle, the physics principle allowing wings to generate lift, starts to break down; this is why supersonic aircraft are usually designed with delta wings better suited to high-speed flight, whereas subsonic aircraft have more conventional ones. Since a flying wing is built around Bernoulli’s principle, no flying wing aircraft has ever been able to break the sound barrier; even the B-2 is limited to subsonic flight.

The flying wing design is niche and rare today, but the concept has been the focus of study for 100 years. Interest in the flying wing spiked during World War II, as both the Nazis and Allies sought a technological edge. After the war, the aerospace community became fixated on supersonic flight, causing reduced interest in the subsonic flying wing. However, in the 1980s, as stealth technology came into vogue, interest in the flying wing renewed, given its inherently small radar cross section (RCS).

How Flying Wing Aircraft Are Designed

Because flying wing aircraft must make room within the wing itself to fit the crew, ordnance, and fuel, the wing is often deeper, with a thicker frontal area, than the wings on more traditionally configured aircraft. Of course, making a wing that is too deep can make drag higher than those found on a traditional aircraft—defeating the purpose of the flying wing in the first place. To prevent making the wing too deep, while still fitting in everything that needs to be accommodated on board, small protuberances are often incorporated in the structure. 

One quirk of the flying wing design is the lack of a tail, which of course means no rudder. As a result, flying wing designs are prone to instability along the vertical (yaw) axis. To provide vertical stabilization, the flying wing design will often incorporate split ailerons, spoilers, or spoilerons.

Historical examples of the flying wing include the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl, the Horten Ho 229, the Northrop N-1M, the Northrop YB-35, and the Northrop YB-49. Various companies, including Boeing, McDonnell Douglas and Armstrong Whitworth, have experimented with flying wing designs that can be used for commercial aviation. However, to date, none have ever proceeded to production. For now, the low-drag flying wing concept is isolated to the military sector.  

About the Author: Harrison Kass

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the U.S. Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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