“This thing is so different from anything that we’ve ever done before that nobody’s going to touch it with a ten foot pole without somebody going out and flying it.”-Larry Loftin, NASA’s Langley Research Center

NASA photo, 1971.

F-8A Bureau Number 141353/NASA tail number 810 with SuperCritical Wing (SCW) flies in its original paint-job in 1971.  On its first flight, on 09MAR1971 the SCW marking on the fin was made from tape.  Also notice the F-8 SCW lacks the bulges on the sides of the forward fuselage, as seen on the later pretty paint-job.

The F-8A Crusader was built by Vought (which has been known by several other names before and since, such as LTV), the SCW was built by North American Aviation (which became Rockwell International).  The wing itself cost U.S. taxpayers $1.8-million.

Richard Whitcomb with a F-8 wind tunnel model equipped with the Supercritical Wing. NASA photo, 19JAN1970.

The SuperCritical Wing creates higher lift-to-drag ratios, NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) boasted that it could save a silly-vilian (civilian) airline company with 280 airliners $78-million (1974 dollars) in fuel per year.   Look closely at airliners developed since the mid-1970s, you’ll see some SuperCritical Wing in them.  Thank the designer of the SCW, Richard Whitcomb.

NASA photo, 1973.

The SCW flying with the DFBW, over the San Bernardino Mountains in California, 1973.  F-8A SCW’s last flight was 23MAY1973.

NASA photo, 1973

VEHICLE I-D: F-8 DFBW, OR ANOTHER REASON WHY TODAY’S TECHIE GENERATION OWES THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX!

NASA photo, 1995.

On 27MAY(the day I was born, not the year)1992, both SCW and DFBW were put on ‘gate guard duty’ at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards Air Force Base, California.

Build your own:

By 1980, the SuperCritical Wing became know as the Aeroelastic Research Wing. NASA photo, 12JUN1980.

Can you recognize the SuperCritical Wing (renamed Aeroelastic Research Wing) on this BQM-34 Firebee II drone?