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"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message ... On Sun, 11 Jan 2004 09:55:02 -0500, Air Force Jayhawk wrote: An aircraft is only unstable if the aerodynamic center is forward of the center of gravity. If the wing root is sufficiently aft and the AC stays aft of the CG, stability remains. Why? Well it was tried with the X-29 but I never have read why no one has pursued it since. The advantage was supposed to be that the boundary layer (the thick air right next to the surface caused by friction and very annoying) builds up as the air moves aftward along the wing. With a FSW, the thickest part of the BL is at the root rather than near the control surfaces, enhancing control while at high angles of attack. There are other advantages but it's been a while so I can't recall them off the top of my head. I knew the USAF pilot on the X-29 project...he said it flew fine and had no issues with it. As I recall the X-29 project, one of the objectives was evaluation of the instability as a means of gaining agility for future highly maneuverable aircraft. The "urban legend" was that the aircraft required minimum of triple redundant FBW augmentation as loss of the augmentation would result in immediate excursions from stable flight and structural failure within seconds. The ultimate in "JC maneuvers". Always thought it made for an extremely ugly airplane. Wasn't the basic structure from an F-16A? Grumman modified an F-5. |
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