Spiroid winglets

Steve

Steve

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Flight video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBTGWDurHMU

Initial flight tests of the Aviation Partners Spiroid concept on a GII reportedly reduced cruise fuel consumption by more than 10%.

http://www.aviationpartners.com/future.html

Aviation Partners plans to fly its second-generation spiroid winglets on a company Dassault Falcon 50 in the third quarter. The flight is part of the $2 million earmark the company received last year to further investigate the novel devices, in part to analyse the potential for reducing aircraft separation distances.

API founder and president Joe Clark says the new spiroids, now in design, are likely to eliminate wingtip vortices in the near field region, although the effects in the far-field, roughly 4.6-5.6km (2.5-3nm) behind the aircraft, will have to be determined by test.

http://www.flightglobal.com/article...ter-summer-for-second-generation-spiroid.html
 
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Man, I do not know what beneficial effect they have on flight, but they certainly do look cool.
 
I am surprised something so complicated looking results in such a huge benefit (they look draggy to me!). If true (10% fuel savings), surely the airline fleet will be equipped with them in short order.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I am surprised something so complicated looking results in such a huge benefit (they look draggy to me!). If true (10% fuel savings), surely the airline fleet will be equipped with them in short order.
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Don't forget that standard winglets already deliver 6% fuel savings or so. An incremental 4% on top of that isn't quite as impressive to the bean counters at the airlines - but it's still significant. We shall see, should this technology make it farther than "initial flight test".

I'll bet those loopy things are interesting in icing conditions!
 
smigaldi said:
ditto. But this is about functionality and not form. If it can really save 10% of fuel consumption who cares what it looks like. That is a lot of $$$ saved in operations.
Click to expand...

Glad you covered the obvious, Scott.
 
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