Swords and wing flutter

Question

In order to retain structural integrity it is understandable that a sword has to be flexible enough to be able to absorb impact without shattering and rigid enough to not be bent due to it.

Is this reasoning the fundamental basis for making wings flexible
(intentionally designing flutter) as well? Or are wings flexible, thus
introducing flutter (which will be aerodynamically undesirable, in at
least a few cases), as a result of the economy  of design (a trade-off
with manufacturing cost or other structural parameters such as
weight)? The wing flutter is most clearly visible on helicopter
blades.

niels nielsen · Accepted Answer

No, wings are designed to carry the maximum load with a minimum of weight. This results in their being flexible; to make them perfectly rigid would dramatically increase their weight and thereby reduce the payload of the aircraft.
Aerodynamic flutter resulting from wing or control surface flexibility is then managed in a way consistent with minimizing the weight of the aircraft- often by simply prohibiting the plane to fly fast enough to trigger the flutter mechanism. Prudent design then yields a plane which will not sustain flutter at any speed up to its design maximum. In this case, an overspeed condition will trigger flutter.

Swords and wing flutter

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