Looking out from a window seat in the midsection of an airliner, you can see clearly that the wing is made up of many moving parts. Its aerofoil shape provides lift, but a pilot needs to regulate the airflow over it in order to control the aircraft. The Wright brothers did this using a system called wing warping, which relied on pulleys and cables to twist the wings into a different shape. That approach was quickly abandoned, though, in favour of ailerons-hinged moving parts that provide more subtle control and place less stress on the structure.
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