New York (AirGuideBusiness - Business & Industry Features) The SR-10 (CP-10) is a single engine, all-composite jet trainer with a (moderate)
forward-swept wing. It was eveloped by a private Russian design bureau called KB SAT, the aircraft features a rather unusual moderate
forward-swept wing (FSW) scheme: although widely tested since 1936, the FSW has never found applications in fast jets, mainly because of the instability and structural problems induced by the design.
Its astonishing forward-swept wings were just one of its many bold innovations.
Planes with forward-swept wings, which are angled in the opposite direction of conventional wings, are rare, but the X-29 wasn't the first to employ them.
Forward-swept wings, however, force air to flow the opposite way, moving inboard from the wingtips.
It is the only aircraft that had forward-swept wings and explored this 'post stall' environment," said Gelzer.
Forward-swept wings have also been made obsolete by thrust vectoring, or the ability to physically move an engine to control the direction of its thrust, ensuring maneuverability even in case of stall.
25, 1997 -- five years after the X-29's final mission -- the Russian Air Force flew the Sukhoi Su-47, its own version of a fighter jet with forward-swept wings. Nicknamed "Berkut" (Russian for "golden eagle"), it was the result of a project that was launched in 1983, but was delayed due to the dissolution of the USSR.