Why Aren't Swing Wing Aircraft Made Any More?

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They were ditched because the cost of maintaining them was insane. The F-14's maintenance cycle was 50 hours of wrench time for each hour of flight time.

I am 71 years old and it is amazing to have lived through the rise and completion of various technologies.

If I may, I would like to suggest a topic. The humble slide rule. Back in the day, they were a pretty big deal. Being a slide rule collector and enthusiast, I can also say emphatically, there are things you can do with a slide rule that are impossible on a calculator. If you really understand them, they can be quite powerful. And they were used to build the modern world.

The English Electric lightning made do with almost no wings at all, pilots used to joke that the the Lightnings wings were only there to space the navigation lights apart.

Small correction; it's B-47 Stratojet not Stratofortress. Great video, I miss watching this channel regularly. Please keep making more videos

The F-14 Tomcat had 6000 moving parts, the F-18 had 1700.

That "Swallow" design @10:31 is gorgeous... I wonder where that model is now.

Man the Vickers Sparrow looks like it's straight out of Thunderbirds. Amazing!

On the F-111 aircraft, we seldom had any maintenance issue regarding the swing mechanism nor the items to accommodate it in the fuselage. Yes, we had major wing carry through box issues early on, but the design was sound, just the issue of welding embrittlement bit us in the butt, big time, and we lost a few crew, unfortunately, again, early on. IIRC (I was an Aircraft Production Superintendent) at most we had to keep an eye on the over wing fairing systems, but it was never, ever a chronic issue like some of the early avionics and stab actuators, just a check for wear on pre & postflights.

I feel that saying "In 1947 Busemann moved to the US" is underrepresenting the scope of Operation Paperclip somewhat.

Swing wings were an aerodynamic solution that have since been surpassed with superior powerplants, flight computers and far more advanced aerodynamic designs. Advances in materials have aided that greatly. Herr Busseman looks like a Hollywood casting directors idea of a German scientist.

Yes they are. I grew up in the 90s so the F-14 Tomcat has always had a special place in my heart.

Hey Paul, may I suggest that you do an episode on torpedoes ? I've always been fascinated by these things, but not really understood them, especially how they made them effective in ww2 era given that they were unguided. Some of the modern designs are insane, like the super-cavitating rocket propelled ones. Anyway, thanks for the video, fascinating as usual.

Being from Brisbane, the F111 were quite popular with the annual fireworks festival in the CBD. The big dump and burns were quite the spectacle

Swing-Wing aircraft CAN accelerate through the Mach and transonic regime like few others can, given the same amount if thrust/weight ratio, a swing wing will blow the doors off an equivalent fixed wing jet, except deltas. (Which can't land anywhere near as slow). Bottom line: Delta is the best. Swing-wing performs similar at high mach. But can land far slower and handle better at low speed.

I would contend that advances in aerodynamic design actually had very little to do with swing wings disappearing. Most swing-wing aircraft actually had more complex flaps and slats than the fixed geometry aircraft that replaced them, often including double and triple Fowler flaps and real slotted slats instead of just leading edge droop. Leading edge extensions that many modern fighters have their roots in the wing gloves of swing-wing aircraft and the double delta of the Sweedish Drakken from the same era. The F-14 was the odd one out as the only production swing wing air superiority fighter or interceptor, and only because as a naval interceptor it needed to combine an interceptor's speed with long loiter times and unrefueled range. the F-15, which was designed around the same time for the same role, except for the airforce, which has much more refueling capacity, had no need for swing wings. Basically every other swing-wing aircraft was a strike aircraft designed to fly fast at low level to avoid radar. The faster you go, the bigger your wings, and the less sweep, the more turbulence throws you around, so going supersonic under 500 ft requires extremely small and highly swept wings so the aircraft stays controllable and doesn't exceed its G limits going that fast in low-level turbulence. The F-105, which was the last pre-swing-wing plane to play that role had a takeoff and landing speed of around 230 mph, a full 100mph faster than the swing-wing aircraft that replaced it. swing wings both increased lift for takeoff and landing themselves and allowed extreme flap configurations to be mounted so that they could takeoff and land at forward bases with less than 6000 ft (2000m) of runway. It also made low-level supersonic strategic bombers like the B-1, Tu-160, and Tu-22 possible at all. Just as an interesting aerodynamic note, the concord represents about the maximum size for a supersonic aircraft without a swing-wings regardless of its engines. large aircraft have to use delta wings because blade-like wings don't have enough bending strength. those delta wings (with or without a tail or canards) have a significant bleeding edge angle, so as the wing gets bigger, its span and area is limited by how long the wing root is. Because area scales with length squared while volume scales with length cubed, if you tried to get bigger than the concord with a delta wing, the wings would have to be longer than the plane, which obviously doesn't work. What killed swing wings from a military perspective wasn't improving aerodynamics or engines so much as improving electronics, mostly for cruise missiles that could do the same job better and with less risk without having to worry about takeoff or landing.

I am a struggling aeronautical engineering student. Your videos keep me motivated in my darkest moments,

You said since 1981 no new swing wing aircraft have been built. The Tu-160 didn't enter service till 1987 and it is currently in production. The Tu-22M3 remained in production into the 1990s

John Boyd studied the swing Wing concept at length, and concluded that additional weight and complexity, was not worth it. On the other hand, he never had to land on carriers.