WingHopper · Designer · Guide · Sections · Reef · Methods · Pricing · FAQ

Curves

The wing is drawn by curves, and every other control edits one of them.

• Leading-edge curve: the front edge of the planform, root to tip. It is the wing's datum: chord controls move the trailing edge, never this one.
• Trailing-edge curve: the back edge of the planform.
• Dihedral curve: the wing seen from the front. Where it rises toward the tip the wing has dihedral; where it falls, anhedral.
• Wingtip curves: the tip outline and the tip's own dihedral. See Wingtip.

Editing

The curves are NURBS. Drag a control point to move it, scroll over it to change its weight (how strongly the curve is pulled toward it), and shift-click to remove it.

• Top view edits the planform: leading and trailing edges.
• Front view edits the dihedral curve, including the wingtip's own dihedral past the tip.
• Side view is edge-on to every curve, so the handles hide.

Tip edits hold decides what a tip-point drag keeps fixed: the span, the area, or nothing (Free, the default). With Free, points move independently and the wing never rescales under an edit.

Show or hide each curve under Display > Layers.

Tip drop (dihedral curve)

Moving the dihedral curve's tip point down, measured on a 30 mm tip drop:

The models here barely see dihedral: lift and drag are solved for the planform, and the structure check reads a straight beam. What dihedral changes most on the water, roll behaviour and how the tips breach, is not modelled.

Next: Size