F-14 Wing

2 August 22, 2024

The F-14 wing used flaps and slats only when the wing were swept forward.[1] Spoilers were placed on the top of the wing.[1] The swept wing was the only solution to satisfy the requirements of the Navy.[3] A retractable glove vane was used to move the aerodynamic center forward.[1] This reduces the load on the tail section.[1] The wing is swept 20 deg for landing and between 20-68 degrees for various maneuvering flight conditions.[2] It also included a 75 degree oversweep position which made its spotting area on the aircraft carrier deck less than the F-4.[3] Each wing has leading-edge slats, trailing-edge flaps, and 4 upper-surface wing spoilers.[2] In the landing configuration the leading-edge slats are deflected to the 35 deg down position, while the spoilers are raised 3 deg up.[2] The center section of the wing used a Titanium structure.[3] The wing sweep happened automatically.[3] Selection the wing pivot point was critical in reducing trim drag.[3] The flaps and slats had intermediate positions for maneuvering.[3] It also had an over-wing fairing and a canvas air bag that inflated and deflated to create a drag-minimizing contour.[3] The wing area was 565 sq ft with an effective wing are of 1008 sq ft.[3] There were only 2 instances of the wing-sweep actuators failing during the entire operational life of the aircraft.[3] It was fully controllable with one wing swept back and one wing swept forward.[3]

F-111C – also had a glove vane, and used spoilers for roll control with high wing sweep
F-14 Direct Lift Control – when the DLC was not in use, the spoilers were used for roll control
Spoilers
F-14 Automatic Wing Sweep
F-14 Wing Pivot Selection
F-14 Glove Vane
Have Blue – F-14 oversweep angle was a little more than the have blue sweep angle
F-117 Aerodynamics – had a 65.2 degree sweep

Sources

Backlinks

Aircraft Trim
F-4 Phantom
F-14 Aerodynamics
Titanium
Variable Sweep Wing