Wing - Design Features

Design Features

Aircraft wings may feature some of the following:

• A rounded leading edge cross-section
• A sharp trailing edge cross-section
• Leading-edge devices such as slats, slots, or extensions
• Trailing-edge devices such as flaps or flaperons (combination of flaps and ailerons)
• Ailerons (usually near the wingtips) to roll the aircraft clockwise or counterclockwise about its long axis
• Spoilers on the upper surface to disrupt the lift and to provide additional traction to an aircraft that has just landed but is still moving.
• Vortex generators to help prevent flow separation in transonic flow
• Wing fences to keep flow attached to the wing by stopping boundary layer separation from spreading
• Winglets to keep wingtip vortices from increasing drag and decreasing lift
• Dihedral, or a positive wing angle to the horizontal. This gives inherent stability in the roll direction. Anhedral, or a negative wing angle to the horizontal, has a destabilizing effect
• Folding wings allow more aircraft storage in the confined space of the hangar deck of an aircraft carrier
• Variable-sweep wing or "swing wings" that allow outstretched wings during low-speed flight (i.e., take-off and landing) and swept back wings for high-speed flight (including supersonic flight), such as in the F-111 Aardvark, the F-14 Tomcat, the Panavia Tornado, the MiG-23, the MiG-27 and the B-1B Lancer warplanes