Air Force to immitate geese.

[ECONORAM]

Originally Posted by Sven7

I thought some wing designs were supposed to mitigate those vortexes. For instance, Airbuses' upturned wing tips.

Yep. Aerodynamically speaking, a winglet reduces the pressure equalizing that normally occurs at an aircraft wingtip. As you know, a typical aircraft wing has higher air pressure on the bottom and lower air pressure on the top. Since air seeks to equalize pressure, the higher pressure air on a typical wing rolls around the wingtip to meet up with the lower pressure air...and we get a vortex. A winglet reduces this pressure movement (and hence the corresponding loss of lift) and increases a wing's effectiveness. So, engineers could shorten the wings a bit if they chose, or could increase the aircraft's load with winglets installed.
The Boeing C-17 has them also: NASA - NASA Contributions to the C-17 Globemaster III
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/dryden/p...04-15-DFRC.pdf

[jamesqf]

Originally Posted by Old Tele man

...called "echelon" formation flying.

Except the military has always done it 'cause the military mind got stuck on the idea of formations back in the days of the Greek phalanx. Wasn't until years and a lot of reading later that I finally realized what all that "present atms!" and "dress right, dress!" stuff that I had to do in boot camp was about: it's really practical stuff when you're gettiing your company of pikemen ready to stand off a calvary charge :-)