Video: Why We Want Boeing‘s 777X Wing Folding Feature On Our Plane!

The under-development airliner, which Boeing expects to be ready to fly by next year, features a wingtip, though its really more of a wing "section" or wing "panel," that folds up to decrease span so the plane can use regular-size airline gates and navigate on standard-issue taxiways while getting all the advantages of a longer, narrow-chord wing design, known in the trade as a "high-aspect ratio" wing. Those advantages, notably, include better fuel efficiency, which is always a great selling point when your market is the airlines.

For small planes like ours, reconfigurable wings---and, really, all of our wings are reconfigurable with flaps and other devices---could, in theory, allow for higher cruise speeds while enjoying good or even improved slow speed handling and lower stall speeds. Win-win. Somebody's just got to build it now.

Here's Boeing's explanation of how it all works with a cool video of the system in action. 

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