Tiny Surface Bumps Cut Aircraft Drag Nearly in Half, Overturning 84 Years of Aviation Design

Researchers at Tohoku University found that microscopic roughness on aircraft surfaces—too small to see or feel—reduces drag by up to 43 percent. This contradicts an aerodynamic rule from 1940 that has guided airplane design ever since. Modern manufacturing can now create these surface treatments precisely enough to work, reopening what the ideal aircraft shape should be.