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The shape of wings to come
13 December 2003
NewScientist.com news service
Paul Marks

A hundred years ago next Wednesday, at a little after half past ten in the morning, a rickety contraption made of canvas, wood and wire began sliding along a rail on a freezing, gale-lashed sand flat in North Carolina. As its home-made petrol engine turned the machine's two propellers, it gained speed and its wings began to generate lift. As that force increased and overcame the craft's weight, Orville and Wilbur Wright's Flyer took to the air.

With the success of that first powered, heavier-than-air, controlled flight - all 12 seconds of it - it would be tempting to think that the pair of Ohio bicycle mechanics had the basic problems of aviation licked. But at the dawn of the second century of powered flight, aviation engineers are still battling to find better ways to solve some of the very same problems the Wrights faced, and many that the brothers could never have dreamed of.

To discover what lies ahead, New Scientist asked leading aviation engineers where their research is taking them, and here we present their various visions. They all agree there are important issues to be settled, such as how to reduce pollution from jet engines, and no one is sure whether we'll ever see another supersonic passenger aircraft after Concorde. But our questions have also turned up a striking parallel between research at the beginning of the last century and today: although aircraft flying now use reliable hinged control surfaces such as ailerons, future aircraft could end up harnessing smart materials to revisit the Wright's revolutionary ideas of bendy, bird-like wing tips, giving them much more control.

In the following pages we also reveal who's getting serious about flying cars, what tomorrow's aircraft will look like, how planes will become quieter, and why the pilot who welcomes you over the intercom may not even be on board...

From issue 2425 of New Scientist magazine, 13 December 2003, page 28

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