Abstract: The aerodynamic characteristics of a folding wing of airborne missiles is investigated by wind tunnel experiments and computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The effects of the folding angle, the angle of attack (AoA), the Mach number, the aerodynamic roll angle, etc. are inspected. We establish an empirical formula for the aerodynamic load on the outer wing. The CFD results agreed well with those in experiments. Results indicate that the aerodynamic force on the outer wing is proportional to its folding angle δ, with its maximum obtained around δ=30°. The effect of the Mach number is the most evident at Ma=1.2, but it is generally small. Computational results show that the aerodynamic load on the outer wing is positive correlated with the local stream angle, and can be expressed as a function of the AoA, the roll angle, the position angle, and the folding angle. At the windward side, the predicted value agree well with the sample value, while at the leeward side, there were some errors due to the interfere of the missile body.