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Could very well be functional. The rippling looks to me similar to the rippling and unevenness of the SR-71, which wasn't smooth because a smooth surface would be less stable at speed.


Actually, portions of the SR-71 skin were corrugated, much like the older (and much slower) Ford Tri-Motor, because the high temperatures of Mach 3+ flight caused the skin to expand and contract dramatically throughout the flight profile. This corrugation was actually against the wishes of the aerodynamicists, who would have preferred a smooth surface.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird


Yep, and those planes leaked fuel like a sieve until the skin contracted and smoothed into the proper shape mid-flight.




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