Fast planes of the future will probably look like the Navy's new jet fighter, the Chance Vought XF7U-1, which completed its initial flight tests last week. The new fighter has short, broad wings "swept back" at an angle of 45° or better. There is no tail; two stabilizers with rudders are attached to the trailing edges of the wings. Two Westinghouse turbojet engines drive the plane at better than 600 m.p.h.
The XF7U-1's design looks radical, but it has long been foreshadowed by the results of wind-tunnel research. Swept-back wings have two advantages....
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