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March 1, 2006
The Cormorant
It floats, it flies, and it eliminates enemy targets, but its called a Cormorant - a sea dwelling bird.
This new class of aircraft designed by Lockheed Martin for the U.S. military is a design experiment on a stealthy jet powered autonomous aircraft outfitted either with short range weapons or surveillance equipment. The craft's wings are shaped like gulls that hinge around the body allowing for high and low altitude gliding. Sounding like something out of Star Trek, the Cormorant is made entirely of titanium making it super light and resistant to sea corrosion.
Usually I wouldn't blog about something designed to assist in destruction but the Cormorant poses interesting design questions. It's form and shape further solidifies the fact that nature has pretty much evolved the proper shapes that best allow operation in the environment; in this case flight. If proven successful, the Cormorant could be a precursor to future aircraft design, borrowing the schematics straight out of nature's handbook.
via popular science
Posted by tranism at 1:38 AM | Permalink
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Comments
Interesting. Besides the characteristic wing shape I dont really see its form and shape, as depicted by the artist, following that closely to nature. Jets today for example have a nose (beak) while this future evolution just has an induction cavity. And what is the design question?
Posted by: Steven at March 6, 2006 8:36 AM
^^^You've sort of asked the question yourself.
Is the Cormorant a successful design study knowing that it's form came from a bird; namely the Cormorant?
You pointed out how it may have similar characteristics to a bird but still lacks the streamline form a real bird has. In this case, the hollowed out hull of the plane probably assists in gliding and propulsion forcing air thru the center cavity to create more lift. A real bird doesn't need that since it's propulsion comes from flapping its wings and the structure of the wing itself.
Again, this could be a precursor to future aircraft design as we advance further in biomemetics and robotics.
Posted by: electro at March 6, 2006 10:14 AM