Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

I'm doing a project for science about hydraulics and pneumatics. I picked the Tomcat's swing wing design but i need to know how the wings move, so i need a diagram of the swing wing design and how it works. I would really appreciate it if anyone have any diagrams of the tomcat's swing wing design that they could post it on this thread.

Bradley

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Try this link. There are other pages that cover other aspects of the flight surfaces also.

(Man....I love Google..)

thank you soooooooooooooooo much that really helped Very Happy

I've heard how the F-14 wing system is heavy but that schematic looks like it wouldn't be that bad?

Notice how the B-1, the F-111 and F-14 are all being put out of service. The airforce and navy had a hard on for the swing wing, higher faster longer farther... it just isn't that great.

Spooky wrote:

I've heard how the F-14 wing system is heavy but that schematic looks like it wouldn't be that bad?

It acctually is the heaviest single point on the aircraft. The tomcat uses a Titanium Beam Box (Basically a big expensive metal fram) to support the weight and be able to handle the torsions and sheering stresses of having a pivot axis on an object that has to move while sustaining huge aerodynamic forces.

At one point there was actually an arguement about whether or not the F-15 would incorporate a swing wing and before this had been decided John Boyd told a Congressional hearing it was going to be a conventional straight wing. Which probably saved the F-15 program alot of grief.

The Swing wing had its time, which was right on the edge between the slide rule era and modern computers. There were just so many new things that can be put into aircraft development that would have been to labor intensive back then. Thats why everybody, even the Russians abandoned it.

Forum: Military Aircraft of the Cold War

F-14 swing wing design