In the previous discussion, we investigated the static aeroelastic behaviour of straight (unswept) wings. These wings are characterised by an effective decoupling of wing bending and wing twist ruling out the influence of bending as a factor. Two critical dynamic pressures (or equivalently flight speeds) have been presented representing the torsional divergence and control surface reversal phenomena. A third important critical dynamic pressure is related to the dynamic aeroelastic instability of flutter, which will be discussed later on. For straight wings, the flutter dynamic pressure is most critical, while information of torsional divergence and control surface reversal phenomena are important to establish the overall aeroelastic picture of the aircraft.
For swept wings, bending has an important and complicating impact on the aeroelastic stability characteristics. These will be presented qualitatively in the following.