Wingtips are the outermost parts of an aircraft wing, lying farthest from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft. They serve as convenient platforms where designers mount navigation lights, anti-collision strobe lights, landing lights, handholds, and identification markings. Various wingtip devices - like wingtip fences that extend above and below the tip - can be added to refine aerodynamic performance, turning the wingtip into both a functional and stylistic expression of aircraft design.
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Jim Goodrich
Jim Goodrich is a pilot, aviation expert and founder of Tsunami Air.
What is a wingtip in aviation?
A wing tip is the part of the wing that is most distant from the fuselage of a fixed-wing aircraft; it is the extreme outer edge of an airplane wing. Winglets, or wingtip devices, were a major innovation in modern aerodynamics. On any fixed-wing aircraft, this outermost edge is simply the part of the wing where spanwise flow meets the open air.
What are aircraft wingtips used for?
Aircraft wing tips are used to mount navigation lights, anti-collision strobe lights, identification markings, landing lights and handholds. Fighter hardpoints on wing tips mount drop tanks, weapons systems, missiles, or electronic countermeasures, while wingtip-mounted hose/drogue systems allow aerial refueling of multiple aircraft with separation.
Beyond these attachments, the primary aerodynamic purpose of modern wingtip devices is to boost efficiency of fixed wing aircraft by reducing drag. They diminish wingtip vortices, decrease lift-induced drag, reduce fuel burn, increase lift, refine climb and takeoff performance, and extend range. By lowering overall emissions and reducing wake turbulence for trailing aircraft, winglets enhance environmental sustainability and operational efficiency. Airbus utilizes wingtip fences, raked wingtips, and sharklets. Hoerner tips are prevalent on gliders and light aircraft.
The main purpose of aircraft wing tips is to handle the basic inefficiency of lift production. High-pressure atmospheric motions from beneath the plane to the low-pressure region above generate whirling vortices that increase drag. These swirls stimulate a downward push on the surface, so wing tips decrease the induced retarding force. By relieving the power of vortices, the application of wing tips achieves advantages against functional restrictions and improves the airfoil's lift-to-drag proportion.
What is the wingtip height of a blended winglets aircraft?
Blended winglets measure approximately 11 feet (3.35 meters) in height on the Boeing 767-300ER, an airframe that carries some of the tallest devices in commercial service. Optimized semi-blended shapes are typically scaled so that the vertical projection equals approximately 10% of the wing semi-span, a guideline that maintains the additional bending moment at the root within acceptable bounds. The same geometric guideline fixes the cant angle near 80 degrees and the sweep angle near 50 degrees, producing the smooth curved transition that identifies the blended family.
What are the types of aircraft wingtips?
The types of aircraft wingtips are outlined below.
- Raked wingtips
- Fence wingtips
- Vertical winglets
- Hoerner wingtips
- Split scimitar winglets
- Blended winglets
- Canted winglets
- Sharklet wingtips
- Spiroid winglets
Wingtip devices come in several designs, each suited to specific aerodynamic requirements, aircraft configurations and mission profiles. Blended winglets curve smoothly from the wing and are the most common type seen today. Split scimitar winglets add an extra downward-pointing tip to the blended base, giving the appearance of a scimitar blade. Boeing utilises split scimitar winglets in the 737 Next Generation family, 737 MAX, 757, 767 and business jets. United Airlines and Ryanair have retro-fitted large fleets with them to gain a 2% range increase.
Raked wingtips extend the wing horizontally with a slight upward sweep instead of a vertical device; they are a Boeing design featured on the 787 Dreamliner family, 767-400, 777, 777X, and on the Embraer E-Jet E2 and C-390 Millennium. Airbus introduced wingtip fences, a more discreet dual-winglet that extends both upward and downward from the tip, on the A300, A310, A320 and A380. Spiroid winglets, designed like a loop of rigid ribbon at each tip, were originally tested on the Gulfstream II in 1993 and later refined on the Falcon 50 in 2010 for future applications.
