Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
"The key to all this is the use of up to 90 percent composite materials in the wing?s structure. Sukhoi has made a major breakthrough in the use of advanced composites in the S-37's wing, and these have proven able to cope with the considerable bending and structural loading on this type of wing during close-in maneuvering across a wide speed range."
Again, X-29 - Been there, done that
<CLIP's>
The concepts and technologies the fighter-size X-29 explored were the use of advanced composites in aircraft construction; variable camber wing surfaces; the unique forward-swept wing and its thin supercritical airfoil; strake flaps; close-coupled canards; and a computerized fly-by-wire flight control system to maintain control of the otherwise unstable aircraft.
Construction of the X-29's thin supercritical wing was made possible because of its composite construction. State-of-the-art composites permit aeroelastic tailoring, which allows the wing some bending but limits twisting and eliminates structural divergence within the flight envelope (i.e., deformation of the wing or breaking off in flight).
The particular forward swept wing, close-coupled canard design used on the X-29 was unstable. The X-29's flight control system compensated for this instability by sensing flight conditions such as attitude and speed, and through computer processing, continually adjusted the control surfaces with up to 40 commands each second. This arrangement was made to reduce drag. Conventionally configured aircraft achieved stability by balancing lift loads on the wing with opposing downward loads on the tail at the cost of drag. The X-29 avoided this drag penalty through its relaxed static stability.
Each of the three digital flight control computers had an analog backup. If one of the digital computers failed, the remaining two took over. If two of the digital computers failed, the flight control system switched to the analog mode. If one of the analog computers failed, the two remaining analog computers took over. The risk of total systems failure was equivalent in the X-29 to the risk of mechanical failure in a conventional system.
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Now back to Earth - I seriously doubt that the Russian Technology of Composite Structures is even a ghost of what
our Composite capability is. Russia has a tendancy to use a tank when a sports cou[pe is the reliable vehicle.
Yes some of their planes have done some pretty nifty manouvers - in air shows, but few of their pilots and the pilots of the
nations that would be flying these pieces of equipment would be able to do much more that plow it into the dirt ball.
I can pretty much say with confidence of not having a conflict with an 'Aledged Composite Expert' that you have no
idea of the sophistication of our Composite development for our Aerospace Applications, how it is done, how it is
designed and what it is capable of doing. There is even a realm of 'Aeroelastic Tailoring' where depending on the
dynamic overpressures, surfaces that change shape - depending on loading - to modify the envelope they fly in.
We also have equipment that can see a wire, like a phone line, from 7 miles out and adjust course to miss them,
even though the pilot doesn't even know that they are there. We have the ability to lock onto a target in flight
before the selected target even gets a blip on it's radar to tell them that there is something else even around.