Variable camber wing is a design of aircraft wing that allows changes in the camber (or curvature) of the airfoil. Any aircraft wing fitted with flaps or ailerons or a leading edge droop is by definition a variable camber wing however the term is usually applied only to wings that are capable of doing so without resorting to conventional flaps though many early patents for flaps described them as variable camber devices. Several mechanisms have been tried, including a device that controls the location and shape of the entire upper surface of the airfoil, a retractable bridge that connects two separate high aspect ratio wings, turning them into a single low aspect ratio wing or with telescopic segments that could be forced out, increasing the thickness, chord and shape of the affected portion of the wing.
Famous quotes containing the words variable and/or wing:
“Walked forth to ease my pain
Along the shore of silver streaming Thames,
Whose rutty bank, the which his river hems,
Was painted all with variable flowers,”
—Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599)
“No Raven’s wing can stretch the flight so far
As the torn bandrols of Napoleon’s war.
Choose then your climate, fix your best abode,
He’ll make you deserts and he’ll bring you blood.
How could you fear a dearth? have not mankind,
Tho slain by millions, millions left behind?
Has not conscription still the power to weild
Her annual faulchion o’er the human field?
A faithful harvester!”
—Joel Barlow (1754–1812)