I saw a show in which a NASA (I think) R/C aircraft had a wing that would pivot (as in AOA) and
I was really fascinated by it. Does anyone have any more info on it, Or know where I can get some?

Thanks

That sounds like the infamous homebuilt "Flying Flea". It turned out to be a death machine in a dive! For links see: http://www.valkyrie.net/~flyingflea/

Thanks for replying , Dave. Thats interesting too, but it was an RC, white in color, and the wing was more or less mid-fuselage. It might have been on the Discovery Channel, The wing moved like a full flying stabilizer(spelling) on a F-16.

Is this it?

[link=http://www.freewing.com/freebird.html]Freebird[/link]

I seem to remember one from long ago, too. I'll keep looking.

I think it is the aircraft in the background (like wallpaper)

I think that's the Scorpion tilt body. A trifle more complex, eh what?

The freewing seems to me like it's a flying wing with a large body hanging under it. The large body being needed to carry the bigger cargos like people and stuff that full sized aircraft are expected to handle. The tail is then along to stabilize the body only.

This would make for an interesting project if you want to learn more but the advantages of the system apply more to manned flight rather than models IMHO. The only real model based advantage that I can see may be the anti stalling bit.

The Scorpion is very cool but that's a whole new scale of technology with lots of problems to solve.

Ah, I found it. Spratt! That's the guy I was thinking of, 'way back in the 30s.

[link=http://www.georgespratt.org/docs/EarlySprattAircraft.htm]Early Spratt[/link]

Another one of those weird aerodynamic theories that just won't go away, although it never seems to work. (Like the helicopter - snicker.)

[link=http://www.flyingflea.org/docs/SprattControlwing.htm]Here[/link] are some later-era Spratts. And [link=http://www.airspacemag.com/ASM/Mag/Index/1995/DJ/ssfw.html]here[/link] is a good story on them, including another guy who tried to build a business on the idea.

Daedelus Engineering -of Logan Utah, did a study , involving a number of years trying various configurations of the freewing.
My good friend , Dave Stuart, did much of the technician work , grunt work and was test pilot for these TURKEYS.
The concept had, in my not so humble opinion, no merit ,whatsoever.
It was akin to a government funded effort to find a good design for bootstraps.
Used to pull oneself into the air.
The plane did get into the air -once ,I believe. -but was always overweight .
My theories of flight design may seem odd to some but this approach made me look like a belt and suspenders type.
The wing was suppose to pivot as needed to counteract gusts, keeping the fuselage on an even keel.
Thrust vectoring was another feature(?).
In actual practice , it violated my first rule of aerodynamics:
If it is too heavy , CG (for that matter, any other stability rule) means nothing.
To explain---the wing loadings exceeded flyable margins.
The reason being that there wasn't enough power to propel it to a speed where the wing could work.
Therefor - establishing correct CG was meaningless---

Am I making fun of it
Yes.
The guys worked hard on it but for some reason, they could not pull hard enough on the bootstraps.

Here you go... Info on the Scorpion:
http://www.freewing.com/index.shtml

Thats it!, Mike. THe idea was awesome when I first saw the show.

It looks revolutionary, I love it

Any thoughts??

Thoughts?

Well... I don't know any more about it than the average modeler. This concept has been written up in a variety of places, published in Model Airplane News, shown on Discovery "Wings" and elsewhere, and of course, the net. I haven't personally flown one, so can't speak about performance details. Regardless, I agree that it's a cool concept... kind of "organic", aerodynamically.

Thanks from me too for re-connecting me with this fascinating beastie. I first came across is about 4 years back on scaledcomposites.com. At that time it was one of their lesser presentations.

So I guess that it has been around for a while.

Always thought it would make a fascinating scale subject - at 1:1?

Yeah, I agree, Im thinking of a crude design. The dual rudders is because one could get "blanked out" by the front of the fuse, Is this correct, or can it be built as traditional single rudder?
THanks for all the great responses to this thread.
Joey

Joey -
Here is a photo of a Free-wing-free canard RC project that was conducted at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center back in 1977.
The primary benefit of this concept is natural gust-alleviationdue to the greatly reduced inertia in pitch, however, inherent in this concept are numerous other benefits not found and not available in conventional designs; such as improved ride quality, improved roll control at low speeds, direct lift control, improved approach visibility, eliminates landing gear geometry problems, to name a few.
The basic model is a modified Goldberg 60 size Falcon with a canard for stall-elimination.
The model flew well, was even aerobatic. The flight results, based mainly on observations, demonstrated that this concept was workable. The stall-spin characteristics were considered to be excellent, CG changes had little effect on longitudinal stability, and fuselage atitude control was a parameter that the pilot had to adjust to.
Hope you found this interesting.
feihu