F-35 at high alpha showing vortices

[vanshilar]

Saw this over on Reddit. The guy took a picture of an F-35 showing the vortices. What I found interesting was that this one in particular had so much that you can clearly see the three-dimensional, conical shape of the vortices coming off of the intakes. You can also see vortices coming off of the nose chines showing they're doing their job.

Aerodynamically, the wings are actually trying to decrease their lift (leading edges down, trailing edges up), and the horizontal stabilizers are actually nose-up. This shows how much lift the non-wing part of the plane is producing; the wings are probably trying to decrease lift to decrease stress on the airframe and therefore extend airframe life, but they can do that because the rest of the plane is generating so much lift.

Image: https://i.imgur.com/Ht6Bsxx.jpg

Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/ ... g_a_sharp/

[vilters]

Correct. The F-35 wing pretty much flies like a delta during high G, high alpha.

The intakes vortex generators and fuselage integration are generating so much lift that the wing flies like a delta, and the tail does the balancing act.

This was discussed after the Paris demonstrations here somewhere else.