§ Lord Balfour of Inchryeasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they are funding research into the possibility of improving take-off and landing performance of aircraft by variable camber wings and variable angles of wing incidence and whether any experiments have taken place.
§ Lord BeaverbrookThe most significant improvement to the performance of civil transport aircraft in the take-off and landing phases is through development of conventional high lift devices such as slotted flaps and slats. At British Aerospace a series of mainly experimental research programmes into these devices was partly funded by the Department of Trade and Industry between 1982 and 1987. No advantage would be gained by the complication of variable angle of wing incidence relative to the fuselage. Work was done in the early 1980s on a variable camber mechanism designed to control transonic flow development, for application to a military fighter. However, this would not have given any benefit at low speed.