Talk:XFA-27/@comment-109.185.164.29-20150419073334/@comment-26183061-20150419194942

Have you ever seen an F-104 Starfighter or an F-111? One has amazingly short wings - pilots referred to it as a "piloted missile" - and the other pioneered the variable-geometry "swing wing". Neither of them were known for ripping their wings off or being unable to fly.

Also, the X-29 is an actual plane that was built and flown as a testbed for forward-swept wing technology. It has shorter wings by far than the Falken, and it was capable of flight without tearing itself apart.

The Wyvern is problematic, in that the swing-wing design has the outer parts of the wing pivoting out of the leading edge of the wing itself, which is going to be very problematic for maintaining airflow across the wing surface during transitional flight. Production version of swing-wing aircraft (F-111, B-1, F-14 in the U.S. arsenal) have the wing tucking the trailing edge when transitioning, not the leading edge.

Of course, this is all academic anyway. People get more worked up about whether or not this or that fictional aircraft could really fly, and don't even bat an eye at the idea of intercepting an orbital weapons platform above a city, or intercepting it and keeping pace with it as it reenters the atmosphere, flying alongside it and even overtaking it and then staying with it for minutes on end, despite the fact that it would likely be traveling in excess of 10,000mph.

It's a game, people. It's not real life.