Design
News Magazine, May 1997 (USA)"These characteristics promised to provide an aircraft with unparalleled stability and extremely short take-off and landing (ESTOL) performance."
Sécurité
Magazine, September 1996 (Canada)"Freewing's Scorpion Tilt-Body is a small UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) with revolutionary performance. It is a new thrust-vectored concept developed by Freewing Aerial Robotics Corp."
Signal Magazine, September
1996 (USA)"One of the most interesting concepts among Matra's UAV developments involves a radical tilt-body aeronautical design, a modular system optimized for naval forces, which the French aerospace company calls Marvel. This tilt-body design is from U.S.-based Freewing Aerial Robotics Corporation, College Park, Maryland. The platform's design makes it attractive for launch and recovery aboard small vessels at sea."
Jane's
Photo of the week, August 28, 1996 (England)"Matra Défense has teamed with the US company Freewing Aerial Robotics to study Marvel, a pivoting wing tilt-body unmanned air vehicle derived from the US company's Scorpion, under contract to the French Navy."
Popular Mechanics Magazine,
January 1996 (USA)"Among the best, truly one of the great innovations of the year ... It's another instance of military technology trickling down to eventually benefit all of us in our daily lives."
Science & Vie Magazine, December
1995 (France)"Perfectly stable, insensitive to turbulence, pivoting wing aircraft are no doubt the future of military observation."
Air & Space Smithsonian
Magazine, January 1995 (USA)"By any standard, the performance of these UAVs is surreal: by the judicious use of thrust-vectoring, the planes can essentially stop dead in the air and then transition again to level flight."
Air & Cosmos Magazine,
June 1994 (France)"It is a revolutionary UAV concept developed by Freewing and validated by a whole range of prototypes that have been flight tested over nearly ten years ... The flight characteristics of such aircraft are rather disconcerting -- but very clever."
Design News Magazine, March
1994 (USA)"Aware of the inadequacies of existing UAVs, the University of Maryland-based Freewing Aerial Robotics Corp. took on the task of developing a better airborne platform for modern warfare. The result of the company's effort, dubbed the Tilt-Body, offers two marquee attractions: turbulence-mitigating, stall-resistant wings and a cheap, simple body design capable of steep climbs and descents."
Discover Magazine, October
1993 (USA)"When a small commuter plane lurches through choppy air, the marvel of air travel loses some of its luster. As their stomachs defy gravity, passengers may silently curse the Wright brothers for putting fliers at the mercy of turbulence... Isn't there some way to isolate the fuselage from the movements of the wings, the way a suspension system isolates a car body from the ups and downs of a road surface? A plane with such a system would not only provide smoother flights but would also suffer far less structural stress.
A fledgling company in College Park, Maryland, is poised to take flight with just such an aircraft... The free-swinging wing can weather-vane its way through gusts without transferring the buffets to the fuselage. Even better, the design greatly reduces the chances of a stall, a leading contributor to air accidents."
Sport Pilot Magazine, July
1992 (USA)"When I was at [the Lakeland Airshow] this year, I ran into a company and a product which may change the course of aviation history. The company is Freewing Aircraft Corporation and the product, the company's airplane, the Freebird MK-IV."
Omni Magazine, July 1992
(USA)"If the pivoting wing lives up to its promise, it could be a household name by 2003, assuring its place in aviation history just in time for the hundredth anniversary of powered flight."
Volar Magazine, Issue #50
(June 1992) (Spain)"Since the dawn of aviation stalls have been the subject of any number of studies, with the goal to reduce or eliminate their negative effects. Wings with flaps, high-lift airfoils, slots, canard systems and other developments -- all these are nothing compared to the new concept of the pivoting wing that a group of engineers from College Park, Maryland, USA, has just unveiled."
Flyer Magazine, June 1992
(England)"The crowd at [the Lakeland Airshow] was treated to the public unveiling of what may be a major advancement in aircraft design. Freewing Aircraft Corporation was showing off its pivoting wing Freebird MK-IV."
Flying Magazine, June 1992
(USA)"As a way of building airplanes, a pivoting wing is surpassed in simplicity only by a flying wing. It has the advantage over a flying wing, however, of permitting a much wider CG range, since the wing always "feels" the fuselage weight in the same place."