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A Laughing Gull on the beach in Atlantic City. Birds' bones are hollow, to cut down on weight and allow flight

A wing is a surface used to produce an aerodynamic force normal to the direction of motion by travelling in air or another gaseous medium. The first use of the word was for the foremost limbs of birds, but has been extended to include other animal limbs and man-made devices.

1 Use

The most common use of wings is to fly by deflecting air downwards to produce lift, but upside-down wings are also commonly used as a way to produce downforce and hold objects to the ground (for example racing cars).

2 Artificial Wings

2.1 Terms used to describe aeroplane wings

• Leading edge: the front edge of the wing
• Trailing edge: the back edge of the wing
• Span: distance from wing tip to wing tip
• Chord: distance from wing leading edge to wing trailing edge, usually measured parallel to the long axis of the fuselage
• aspect ratio: ratio of span to standard mean chord

2.2 Design Features

Aeroplane wings may feature some of the following:

• A rounded leading edge cross-section
• A sharp trailing edge cross-section
• Leading-edge devices such as slats or slots
• Trailing-edge devices such as flaps
• AileronAilerons are hinged flaps attached to the trailing edge of an airplane wing, usually near the wingtips. They are used to control the aircraft in roll. The two ailerons are interconnected so that one goes down when the other goes up: the downgoing ailerons (usually near the wingtips) to provide roll control
• SpoilerIn aeronautics a spoiler (sometimes called a lift dumper is a device intended to reduce lift in an aircraft. Commonly found in gliders, it is usually a plate which can be extended upward and/or downward from the wing, extending into the smooth airflow ands on the upper surface to disrupt lift

2.3 Wing Types

• DihedralDihedral is the upward angle of an aircraft's (or bird's) wings from root to tip, as viewed from directly in front of or behind the aircraft. Downward angled wings are said to have anhedral''. The purpose of dihedral is to confer stability in the roll axi wings, which have an angle between them, have inherent stability in roll. As the aircraft rolls, one wing generates more lift, rolling the aircraft back into position.
• Swept wings are good for fast aircraft. They present the wing at an angle to the airflow, so that the wing "sees" a slower airflow.
• Elliptical wings are theoretically optimum for efficiency at subsonic speeds.
• Delta wingThe delta-wing is a wing planform in the form of a triangle. Its use in the so called "tailless delta", i. without the horizontal tailplane, was pioneered especially by Alexander Lippisch in Germany and Boris Ivanovich Cheranovsky in the USSR prior to WWIs have reasonable performance at subsonic and supersonic speeds.
• WaveriderA waverider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by producing a lifting surface built out of the shock waves being generated by its own flight, a technique known as compression lift. To date the only aircraft tos are efficient supersonic wings that take advantage of shock waves.
• Rogallo wingThe Rogallo wing (invented by and named for Francis Rogallo) is a simple, inexpensive flying wing with remarkable properties. It is most often seen in toy kites, but has been used to construct foot-launched gliders, parachutes and small aircraft. A rogalls are two hollow half-cones of fabric, one of the simplest wings to construct.
• Swing-wingA swing-wing is a type of pivoted wing planform that attempts to combine the advantages of a swept wing at high speeds, while avoiding its problems at lower speeds. The design is successful in this respect, but the added mass and complexity are currentlys (or variable geometry wings) are able to move in flight to give the benefits of dihedral and delta wing. Although they were originally proposed for the unbuilt Boeing 2707The Boeing 2707 was intended to be the first American supersonic airliner. It would have been built at the Boeing plant in Renton, Washington, but increasing outcry over the environmental effects of the aircraft, notably sonic boom, led to its cancellatio, they are currently only found on some military fighter aircraft such as the Grumman F-14, Panavia Tornado, and General Dynamics F-111.