Smart materials have been incorporated into all manner of devices, from shock absorbers to steel beams, but not yet into airplanes-- for which they seem tailor-made. A smart material changes its shape in response to a stimulus, like an electric current or a magnetic field, and an airplane wing that could do that, bending or twisting itself like a bird’s wing, would be cheaper to produce and less prone to malfunction than one with hinged ailerons and flaps. Engineers at university and industrial labs across the country have spent the past few years racing to be the first to fly a plane, any kind of plane, with smart control surfaces. The race now seems to be over--won by an aerospace engineer who usually designs missiles, his team of graduate students, and a little glider named Mothra.
Mothra, named after a mothlike monster featured in Japanese horror movies, is the brainchild ...
