Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or being an airplane with wings constructed to allow the outer portion to fold back along the fuselage to produce streamlining at high speeds.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Simultaneously, the Navy told Congress it had in hand the design for a far better swing-wing fighter than the F-111, and it could build the aircraft right away for the same money as the F-111B.

    Winslow T. Wheeler: A Tale of Two Pigs 2009

  • At birth, the F-111 was the Tactical Air Command's 60,000 pound baby nuclear bomber designed around two high tech hooks: the glitzy swing-wing that NASA was pushing hard (now thoroughly discredited as a lousy idea) and the first big, complicated bombing radar on a so-called fighter.

    Winslow T. Wheeler: A Tale of Two Pigs 2009

  • Su-24: A Soviet swing-wing bomber that carries a variety of precision air-to-surface missiles.

    Seeking Haven In Iran 2008

  • Deadliest were the Backfires, sleek, swing-wing, supersonic aircraft originally designed specifically for missions against naval targets.

    Countdown Douglass, Keith 1994

  • The ship was lovely -- at least, her re-entry system was lovely, a swing-wing streamlined exploration vehicle as big as any hypersonic passenger plane.

    A Hole In Space Niven, Larry, 1938- 1992

  • It is a swing-wing aircraft, very similar in plan to the United States Air Force prototype B-1, which is still several years away.

    NORAD: Current Operations and Future Plans 1976

  • West Germany's got five hundred Devon Aviation Striker SK-6 swing-wing aircraft in service with the Luftwaffe as part of NATO's nuclear and conventional air force.

    The Striker Portfolio Hall, Adam 1968

  • The configuration was dart-like: the Striker SK-6 was a swing-wing and at that altitude the mainplanes would normally be in furled position twenty degrees from the fore-aft line of the fuselage and not showing much.

    The Striker Portfolio Hall, Adam 1968

  • The IAF flies around 160 MiG-27 swing-wing aircraft, used for both air-to-air and ground attacks in eight of the existing 33.5 squadrons.

    Zee News : India National 2010

  • Powered by two 20,900 thrust-pound, afterburner-equipped Pratt and Whitney TF30-P-414A turbofans, the swing-wing, variable-geometry fighter, whose sweepback varies from 20 degrees in the forward to 68 degrees in the aft position, was the 331st such Tomcat airframe to roll off the nearby

    Arsenal News Blog 2010

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