Gull wing

Common card · No. 457022

The gull wing, also known as Polish wing or Puławski wing, is an aircraft wing configuration with a prominent bend in the wing inner section towards the wing root. Its name is derived from the seabirds which it resembles and from the Polish aircraft designer Zygmunt Puławski who started using this design in his planes. Numerous aircraft have incorporated such wings for a diverse range of purposes. The gull wing was commonly used to improve visibility in a high wing arrangement, because such wing could be thinnest by the fuselage, and in theory should limit pilot's view no more than A-pillars of a windscreen in a car body. Gliders were the first aircraft to feature the gull wing, starting with the Weltensegler in 1921; it was not until the record-breaking Fafnir at the end of that decade did the configuration gain popularity. Beyond becoming popular for the next three decades amongst high-performance gliders, various ground-based aircraft and flying boats also adopted various forms of gull...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Kogo, GFDL