> On January 17, DARPA announced the next steps of a program to create an aircraft designed to fly entirely on control surfaces that lack the moving parts that airplanes typically use to maneuver. DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, specializes in blue-sky visions, investing in research towards creating new possibilities for technology. In this program, it seeks to change how aircraft alter direction in the sky.

An airplane that can fly without control surfaces could have higher performance, less noise, improved efficiency, and less radar signature compared to a conventional aircraft that uses flaps and ailerons. It could be a significant step forward over what is possible with current aircraft.

That will end up being the framework for the first space environment fighter.

Exactly. You only get rid of control surfaces if there is no space. So basically they want an airplane capable of traveling both air and space.

Meanwhile the engineers: sure we'll just pull that out of our rear

We are already building them.

Or, they are talking about deformable aerofoils and fuselages.

Instead of having a flap on a hinge, the wing is a single shape blended smoothly into the body with a portion that can flex to adjust the aerodynamic properties.

They are possibly talking about external moving parts. There have already been experiments with deformable wings, so the wings aerodynamic properties can be adjusted whilst maintaining a totally smooth, seamless skin.

In other words there’s gonna be some weird shit in the sky

Ah yes. Like with the space shuttle which famously lacked any kind of control surfaces.

The concept of "space fighters" makes little to no actual sense:

http://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php

https://futurewarstories.blogspot.com/2012/05/fws-topics-hard-science-space-fighters.html

Which, oddly enough, is how the Wright Flyer controlled yaw. Warping wings are not a new concept at all, but doing it on a modern high performance aircraft without external wires and braces is quite new.

Because they're convinced someone out there already has one of these designs.

Dafuq maybe y’all should read the article 🤣 it needs air to use the Methodes proposed so it’s got fuck all to do with space

This is fantastic. A wing that uses current to change air resistance. These will have many applications and open up radically new designs. ThNks for sharing

And without compromising stealth as well.

Plasma actuators reattaching the flow for the youtube lazy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v67vVTGgIs

The issue with standard actuators is that they easily break the flow and this creates drag. Birds warp their wings for instance.

The figure for what constitutes a "short runway" is given as "1,5000ft" which is obviously a typo. I assume it was supposed to be 1,500 rather than 15,000 as the latter is a ~3 mile runway and probably not what would be considered "short" :-P

The idea of changing airflow around an aerodynamic surface using forced air isn't exactly new. There were experiments with "coanda effect wings" for propulsion as well as control at least as far back as the 1950s.

There are also devices (NOTAR) using the coanda effect as an alternative to the tail rotor on some helicopters.

Applying the concept more broadly seems like a fairly obvious possibility to consider. I'm sure there are plenty of engineering challenges ahead on that path, though, so it may turn out to be a dead end for some reason.

The most obvious potential challenge that occurs to me is the "fun" of keeping the various nozzles needed operating evenly, given that they're generally very long thin slits that need to be kept un-clogged. If you get a bit of dirt wedged in one, or bend the edge somehow, the airflow will be absent where the blockage is and faster in other places. Obviously, you'll want ways to avoid that happening altogether, but you have to assume it'll manage to happen anyway, so you'd want the avionics to be able to at detect / adapt to that kind of condition.

Fun stuff! :-D

Pretty sure there is, especially when you see the Nimitz incidents and various other videos and account of distinguished pilots

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I'm not saying those were aliens...

Isnt that just the drones from Ace Combat 7?

So if they ever turn against bus, all we need is a mute psychopath with no blood, and stick them in a jet to shoot them down.

I remember there being a research project at my uni focusing on basically the same principle, they channeled air through vents on the wing so the airflow was different on each wing which made the aircraft maneuver

This is what they got from the wreckage some congressman admitted exists the other day.

This has been a thing for a long time, check out MAGMA

We've got this at The University of Manchester in the UK already

UoM?

I wonder if when Mr Dyson submits his new plane into the contest, will it be yellow or fuchsia?

After they made a remote controlled cyborg moth. I think DARPA should go the giant flying creatures route.

White Star.

Only read the title? They already did.

> In 2019, NASA patented a wing control system that combined both plasma and synthetic jet actuators, with the goal of creating actuators without any moving parts, and which were “essentially maintenance free.”

> With “Active Flow Control,” aircraft can use plasma actuators or synthetic jet actuators to move air, instead of relying on physical surfaces. With plasma actuators, this is achieved through changing the electrical charge of air passing over the actuators mounted in the wing, in turn changing the flow of that air. Meanwhile, synthetic jets can inject air into the airflow over the wing, changing lift. In 2019, NASA patented a wing control system that combined both plasma and synthetic jet actuators, with the goal of creating actuators without any moving parts, and which were “essentially maintenance free.”

edit: removed offending "No." ;-)

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Already is, lol

Oh shit........ I should have used my other account named 'i don't read'

Great information.

No need to preface it with 'No' however. Not everything you say has to be to prove you right and someone else wrong.

You could have said 'That's entirely possible, but they are for sure working on this other different thing: '.

Incidentally, the Wright flyer was rarely picked up by radar.

They actually incorporate similar logic to this technology on the F-35, B-2, F-22, and B-21 raider, except it's for stealth purposes.

They use a radar absorbent/scattering tape that has different levels of conductivity along any bay door edges and on certain areas of the wings, except in this case, they're using current to change the scattering of radar waves as radar waves will scatter in different directions over different levels of conductivity resulting in multiple small radar waves scattering in many directions instead of a large return signal back to the source

here is a good video about the f35 and its capabilities that mentions use of the scattering tape

There will always be a need for manned space flight applications, especially when weapons are involved.

Whenever I read "DARPA wants" I always assume it's actually. "DARPA has and is looking forward to announcing".

No. :)

I believe Dohnakun was replying to Takenisusername comment on external moving parts.

So it was "No external moving parts". They were just being energy efficient.

That is not what the article tech pertains to tho

>In 2019, NASA patented a wing control system that combined both plasma and synthetic jet actuators, with the goal of creating actuators without any moving parts, and which were “essentially maintenance free.”

How about weight?

If there's no moving parts, the weight could be more, less or the same as the mechanisms that have been replaced.

But even if this system weighed the same, the increased reliability and maintenance free qualities ought to make their way to civilian aircraft design as well.

Yeah the humans will be in the carrier not in the "fighters". You cant bank off anything in space fighter planes make no sense. Most fights will happen millions of miles away from eachother anyways with sensor based fights and not dogfights.
You already see this in modern fighter jet fights. If you have visual on an enemy fighter jet its already too late. They fire missiles from so far away.

Can this design be scaled upto large aircraft or does it only work for small flying aircraft like the one pictured above

I know. It's about using electrical charge to manipulate the airflow around a plane as opposed to using mechanical in flight adjustments of the stabilizing components and appears to imply that you could be able to do away with the stabilizing components all together making flying wing style fighter jets possible perhaps.

I was just pointing out that the same principles of manipulating charge were present in stealth aircraft technology for a different reason, is all.

I guess those are the UFOs people are seeing? DARPA admits to things when they already have a working prototype.

Alright cheers :) ma bad!

Hahaha dude a ufo design could finally be possible

Imagine all the advanced jet fighters in the world that have basically never been used. We publicly fund to research, develop, manufacture, deploy, maintain, all of this costing billions of public wealth and what for? With MAD (nukes) they basically are assured to never to be used.

Yeah, they showed a UFO-shaped military aircraft once on AHC. It was designed in the 50s and it was hovering and UFO-shaped. I think they already have stuff that they are still experimenting on in the hopes it becomes economically feasible someday. People aren't happy with a 2 billion dollar plane, imagine a plane that cost 20 billion dollars? That wouldn't sit with people.

But oddly enough a 10 billion dollar aircraft carrier is fine.

You are excluding a lot of realities. Such as Electronic Warfare: where large complex networks of acquisition and search radars are integrated with thousands of concepts for lock on or break away. Banking, as you stated, is just a method of attitude control with the limitations of design. Not all aeronautical, or aerospace vehicles will need to ‘bank’. You statement is erroneous due to your assumption that the limitations of our current technology will never advance to solve your banking problem.

Not all fighters need to have a human, as such, can be piloted remotely, or autonomous. But as long as war exist my friend, there will always be a soldier on the front. Companies that want security measures for their resource operations in space will rely heavily on automation, but a human presence will always be needed: not just in the carrier.

AFAIK the largest vehicles made with the "UFO" design were of a scale similar to the one in the pictures. IIRC (I did read up on it a while back) the main problem was difficulty with stability and control, so they shelved the plans.

These days, with computer control, reacting to changes in dynamics hundreds of times per second would be perfectly feasible, though, so perhaps those challenges are ready to be taken on.

Some modern aircraft are deliberately designed to be inherently unstable and require constant active control from an onboard computer to remain pointy-end-first. The advantage is that when you do want to change direction, it can be done very quickly indeed. With that and thrust vectoring, you can also make a plane that will function in states where a more traditional design would turn into a billion dollar brick (see Relaxed Stability and Supermanoeuverability)

In terms of scaling it up to larger sizes, I expect they'd scale reasonably to a point, but as you get larger, the sheer volume of air you'd need to huff around starts to be an issue. The density of air doesn't go up as your aircraft size goes up, so it's not just a matter of doing the same thing but bigger.

The article linked to by OP was only talking about using these kinds of techniques for control surfaces, though, not for directly generating lift, so we're only talking about a pretty small fraction of the required oomph compared to the flying saucer.

Those are not (just) displays of a difference in maneuvering but thrust itself, the technology discussed in the article has little to do with that it seems.

You gotta get inside the head of the enemy. To chase down the UFOs, we must first learn to become the UFOs!

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We're getting so close to the ionized shell design to reduce friction. YAY UFO TECH. I mean what's that don't kill me alphabet agencies

Interesting claim here:

>The controls can also be quieter, minimizing detection from audio sensors

As a lay person it's kind of surprising that traditional control surfaces would generate enough noise compared to something like a jet engine to make much of a difference in detectability. Not really questioning this claim, just expressing my surprise that this would be the case.

DARPA is the equivalent to the house Slytherin. Just stay away!

And even if radar had been invented then, it would have had a tiny radar signature, being mostly made of wood and cloth. The engine block would be pretty much the only bit that would show up more than a modern stealth plane.

While movable flaps are certainly a factor in providing a radar return, smooth wings aren't the ideal from a radar perspective - hense the distinctive Tesla CyberTruck^TM appearance of the [F117](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stealth_aircraft#/media/File:F-117_Nighthawk_Front.jpg].

If you have a flat surface, it'll only return radar waves in one direction (which is unlikely to be where the receiver is) whereas a curved surface will scatter it in lots of directions, meaning some is likely to end up going back where it came from to be detected.

The worst case scenario is something that forms a retro-reflector, such as a corner reflector or the radar equivalent of a cat's eye so they're careful to avoid those.

As a thought experiment (or a real one if you feel like it) have a friend hold up a Christmas tree bauble and a similarly sized compact mirror in a dark field. Shine a torch at them, and see which you can see more easily.

The ball will have a sharp spot of reflected light on it, and the mirror will (almost certainly) not reflect back toward you and be seen.

Of course, if you happen to angle the mirror just right, then it'll reflect a whole bunch of light back at you, but of course they don't use mirrors, they use the radar equivalent of VantaBlack so even the reflection you do get is minimised, but the difference between the flat and curved surfaces remains.

The aircraft carrier is a mobile oil defense platform, it pays for itself, it doesn’t pay for the labor and cost of maintenance, but it does pay for itself

Wait does that mean they can use the scattering tape to actively change it's RCS/shape in real time?

1500 feet is still longer then the 1092 foot long super carrier runway… Odd. Where are they planning on launching them from?

So they want a UAP/UFO. The fact that they announced they want it means they already have it

>Yeah, they showed a UFO-shaped military aircraft once on AHC. It was designed in the 50s and it was hovering and UFO-shaped.

Are you talking about the sketchy experimental hovercraft, that they were playing around with?

We have publicly available hovercrafts. We've had them for a long time. They're just platforms/vehicles built around giant fans that face downwards.

Neat. However If darpa is trying to make something it’s not for good reasons.

From what I understand, they use it around weapons bays and other openings as well as serated openings together to scatter waves when they are otherwise in a vulnerable position by having a larger and non stealthy profile while they are open, so it's not so much actively changing the radio cross section but it's drawing the radio wave along the tape and causing it to dissipate in small bursts at different electrical charges as opposed to being one unified return wave, while the serrations. I imagine instead of looking like a long object, maybe the return signal appears more that of some birds, perhaps.

If you look at the f35, you'll see the light gray patterns; that's all radar scattering tape cuz it doubles in benefit being easier to maintain than regularly repainting a plane that has supersonic capabilities.

They can make aircraft that would maneuver like crazy but would kill you if you were in it. A drone could fly really fast then stop on a dime, but an aircraft with a pilot has to operate within the tolerances of the human body.

And it’s called thrust, which still applies in space

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I'm no DARPA-ologist, but I would hypothesise that this spec is for an initial phase to develop / demonstrate the technology, to be potentially followed by a more demanding spec aimed at a potential deployable asset.

Also, bear in mind that by far the majority of aeroplanes don't have to take off from a carrier. While being able to take off from a carrier is definitely a useful feature, being able to take off from a 1500ft runway still opens up a lot of potential places to fly from - old WWII aerodromes, for example. If you have a friendly airport nearby, there's less need to rely on using a carrier (though you'll still have to arrange fuel supply and other support stuff)

Carrier capability is not a design factor for anything other than carrier aircraft. Everything else operates off a normal airfield.

You mean the big metal balls? I saw one like 4 years ago so if they claim to release one soon for "the first time" they are full of it.

Sorry. Making a point to post about it when I see ufos mentioned.