De asas oblíquas aeronaves (que têm uma asa longa que gira em torno de um ponto central, de modo que a asa é reta em baixa velocidade, mas fortemente varrida - um lado para a frente e o outro lado para trás - em alta velocidade), enquanto teoricamente é mais eficiente que a aeronave convencional, ter vários problemas que os impediram de ver algum uso significativo; um desses problemas são os vários modos incomuns de acoplamento cruzado, incluindo uma tendência significativa ao acoplamento pitch-roll (onde o lançamento para cima ou para baixo faz a aeronave rolar para um lado ou para o outro e vice-versa) e a necessidade de manter uma ângulo de inclinação apenas para manter o vôo coordenado e evitar deslizar para os lados (mesmo sem assimetria de impulso), os quais se tornam cada vez mais severos em ângulos de varredura altos.
Por exemplo (ênfase adicionada):
McMurtry found the handling qualities were very close to the simulator, but that the aircraft’s asymmetry resulted in unusual trim requirements, asymmetric stall and inertial coupling. [...] For instance, the AD-1 required about 10° of bank in order to trim the aircraft with no sideslip at 60° wing sweep.
[...]
As hoped, the low-cost, low-speed, low-technology AD-1 successfully demonstrated the concept of a manned oblique wing aircraft, sweeping the wing to a maximum of 60°. The aircraft experienced cross coupling between pitching moment and aileron deflection. This pitch-roll coupling and the aeroelastic effects contributed to unpleasant handling qualities at sweep angles above 45°. [...] [A Summary Of A Half-Century of Oblique Wing Research, pages 20-21.]
The proposed wing pivot was also to be canted so that at 0° sweep, the wing was canted to 0°, but at 65° sweep it would be canted to 10°. The wing incidence would also have been increased (a standard feature of the F-8) with higher sweep angles. These features were expected to reduce aerodynamic cross-coupling, such as the necessity to bank the whole aircraft to trim sideslip, as found in the AD-1 flight testing. [...] _[A Summary Of A Half-Century of Oblique Wing Research, page 23.]_
Flight tests of AV1 and AV2 proved the design to be controllable in both pitch and roll. Noble states, “The elevon mixing is standard symmetric and the aircraft responds equally to left and right inputs. There is some slight roll coupling associated with up and down elevator. I believe this can be eliminated with fine tuning of the elevon mixing.” _[A Summary Of A Half-Century of Oblique Wing Research, pages 32-33.]_
Por que asas oblíquas vêm com esses estranhos acoplamentos cruzados?