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Old 3rd May 2019, 07:42
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OldLurker
 
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: England
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UAV flying wth blown-air flight controls

BAE Systems in the UK are flying a UAV, 4 meter wingspan, with no moving control surfaces, using blown air for flight control. It's called Magma. (They had a previous smaller one called Demon – PPrune discussion here in the military aviation forum.)

It's produced silly mass-media headlines like Could this plane end bumpy landings? Britain trials the world's first aircraft without wing flaps (Daily Telegraph, story behind pay-wall after first 2½ paras) although in the paper's partial defence, BAE themselves and The Engineer talked about flaps in their stories. In fact it seems to be not only flapless but also aileron-less, rudder-less and elevator-less, no moving parts.

Obviously there's a long way to go, but might this technology have potential for commercial aircraft one day?
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