An aircraft with a fixed wing is able to fly due to the lifting force generated by the aerodynamic shape of the fixed wing while moving forward at a certain speed, the development of which is achieved in various ways (often by the engine or by the rational use of upward air currents). Fixed wing aircraft are heavier-than-air vehicles and differ from rotary-wing aircraft, in which the wing blades form a rotor mounted on a rotating shaft or birds capable of flapping flight.

Fixed aircraft wings are not always rigid: they are capable of certain calculated deformations, as well as variable, depending on the mode of flight, sweep.

The use of a fixed wing gives a significant advantage when using the thrust of the engine driving the aircraft forward (airplane), periodic engine activations (paraglider), as well as the use of air currents (hang glider) and the effect of the Earth screen (screen plane). Planes without their own engine (gliders), after gaining altitude (towing by aircraft or taking off from a high altitude site) switch to free flight mode (soaring), using air currents to move and further gain altitude, as birds do in soaring flight (hawks, kites and so on). Modern gliders are of great variety: from ultra-light ones weighing about ten kilograms and having the speed of flight slightly faster than the speed of a horse to space shuttles with the launching weight of more than 100 tons and the orbital flight speed of 28 thousand kilometers per hour. Despite the fact that in its flight characteristics any winged spacecraft bears little resemblance to an ordinary glider, it descends in the atmosphere and lands on the surface of the Earth in the glider mode.

Most often fixed-wing aircraft are piloted by a pilot on board the aircraft, but some are designed or remotely controlled or computer-controlled (so-called drones or unmanned aerial vehicles).

Cruise missile
The idea of an unmanned, automatically controlled “flying bomb” appeared almost immediately after the birth of aviation (in the first decade of aviation): in 1910 (before the First World War) it was proposed by French engineer Rene Laurent, better known as the owner of the 1913 patent for a direct current air-jet engine. The world’s first cruise missile produced in series and used in actual warfare was the Vau-1, developed by Germany and tested on December 21, 1942. It was first used at the end of World War II against Great Britain. The obsolete name of the cruise missile, designed according to the aircraft (classical) scheme, is the projectile plane. Compared to airplanes, the main advantage of a cruise missile is that it is unmanned, allowing not only to save lives in combat conditions, but also to reduce the size, thereby making it difficult for the enemy to detect. Since cruise missiles are designed for single use they do not require refueling, the range is determined by “one way”, to them are much less stringent requirements on the life of the engine and other units.

The configuration of “flying wing” type aircraft was extensively studied during the 1930s and 1940s, particularly by Jack Northrop in the United States and the Horten brothers in Germany. John Northrop – the founder of Northrop – was a supporter of this design scheme and tried to implement it in all projects in which the development of the aerodynamic scheme of the aircraft was not strictly regulated by the customer and its design was offered at the developer’s discretion.

Kite

A kite is a tethered aircraft heavier than air, which is supported in flight by the pressure of the wind on a surface placed at some angle to the direction of the wind and held in place by a ruler from the ground. In flight, the kite is tethered to a fixed point on the ground in such a way that the wind blows on its fixed wing. The first mentions of kites date back to the 2nd century B.C., in China (the so-called “dragon kite”).

The kite is lifted when air flows over the fixed wing create a rarefaction of air, and a higher pressure is formed below, pushing the wing upwards. Thus, it is possible to drag the kite horizontally in the wind direction due to the generated ejection force. A kind of dynamic equilibrium is established: the vector of equipotential force consisting of lifting and dragging force component counteracts the tension appearing at tension of a rope or a cord attached to the fixed wing.