Airbus built a scale-model aircraft with flapping wing-tips with hopes to reduce drag and wing weight and counter the effects of turbulence.

The remote-controlled simulator called AlbatrossOne has a semi-aeroelastic hinge that allows the wing-tips to move freely in flight.

The model is based on the company’s Airbus A321 plane, with an adaptation that “locks its wings at the shoulder for long-distance soaring but unlocks them when wind-gusts occur or maneuvering is required,” said Tom Wilson, engineer, Airbus.

The model is built from carbon fiber, glass fiber-reinforced polymers and components from additive-layer manufacturing.

The company will continue to test the model before scaling up. The project is currently 20 months in development.

“While hinged wing-tips are not new — military jets employ them to allow greater storage capacity on aircraft carriers — the Airbus demonstrator is the first aircraft to trial in-flight, freely-flapping wing-tips to relieve the effects of wind gusts and turbulence,” Wilson said.

“The AlbatrossOne model will explore the benefits of unlockable, freely-flapping wing-tips — accounting for up to a third of the length of the wing — to react autonomously during in-flight turbulence and lessen the load on the wing at its base, so reducing the need for heavily reinforced wing boxes.”