Not a drag: High-tech airplane wings could cut fuel costs by 20 percent

A new study says that within three years jumbo jet makers could be testing out a new type of wing that reduces mid-air drag and cuts fuel costs by an estimated 20 percent. The wing would do this using small, built in jets that redirect air around the wing during flight.

“This has come as a bit of a surprise to all of us in the aerodynamics community,” Duncan Lockerby, an associate professor of fluid-solid mechanics at the University of Warwick in the U.K. and head of the research project funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and aircraft maker Airbus, said in a statement. “It was discovered, essentially, by waggling a piece of wing from side to side in a wind tunnel.”
Lockerby acknowledged that he and his team weren’t sure exactly how the small jets actually reduce drag, but they’re building prototypes they hope will be ready for testing as early as 2012 and will eventually reduce surface friction drag by up to 40 percent.

Scientific American