Definition
An aircraft design in which the entire airframe consists of a single wing, with no separate fuselage or conventional tail. The crew, payload, fuel, and engines are housed within the thickness of the wing itself.
Plain English
An aircraft that is just one big wing, with no body or tail sticking out behind it. Everything—people, fuel, engines—fits inside the wing.
Context Anchor
Seen in airframe design, aircraft identification, and maintenance descriptions of unusual aircraft shapes.
Derivation
The phrase is almost literal: the wing is not just attached to the aircraft; the wing is essentially the aircraft. That helps separate it from a typical airplane, where the body, wings, and tail are clearly separate parts.
Why Pilots Care
A flying wing has very different handling and stability characteristics from a conventional aircraft because it lacks a tail for pitch and yaw stability. Control surfaces and stability are built into the wing itself, often requiring computer assistance to fly safely.
Intuition Check
A flying wing is not simply any wing that is flying. It is a whole aircraft design where the wing forms the main structure and there is no separate body or tail.
Example Sentence 1
The B-2 Spirit is a flying wing, which gives it a low radar signature but requires a computerized flight control system to remain stable.
Example Sentence 2
A flying wing uses fewer parts than a conventional airplane because there is no fuselage to maintain.