Meet the NASA plane with its wings all askew

No, this isn't a photoshop. This is actually a plane created by NASA, the AD-1, and it has oblique wings that are turned 60-degrees across its fuselage. Craziness!

The AD-1 Oblique Wing Research Aircraft was designed and made at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center--located in Edwards, California, in the western Mojave Desert--in the mid-1970s. Engineers were curious about the aerodynamic characteristics of such a plane, as well as the control laws required to govern it. Their objective? Better fuel economy: Wind tunnels at NASA Ames showed that an oblique wing design will use half the fuel at supersonic speeds, thanks to superior aerodynamic qualities.

So while you won't see an airliner with wings like this anytime soon, apparently this crazy design actually saves boatloads of fuel for high-speed jets. So get used to this design: it may become a lot more common than you'd think in the not-too-distant future.

Via Gizmodo