AMA Expo West 2018 - NASA's Al Bowers: Prandtl Wing Update

Armstrong Chief Scientist Al Bowers challenged the fundamental core assumptions of leaders in the field of aviation: their solutions to overcome adverse yaw were wrong. With a nod to German aerodynamicist Ludwig Prandtl’s 1933 theory of minimum induced drag and bending moment, Bowers named the first iteration of his work the “Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design To Lower Drag (PRANDTL-D)”. He began his multiple-year trek to prove that not only could adverse yaw be overcome, but it could be turned into proverse yaw for aircraft, without relying on rudders or complicated computerized flight controls to accomplish it - just as birds achieve it.