A BIRD WITHOUT A TAIL; CRAFT WILL MIMIC DAMAGED AIRPLANE.Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer NASA's tiny tailless X-36 airplane resumed flight tests Thursday, this time to begin a program to check out a system to allow a damaged airplane to continue flying. Barely more than one-quarter the size of a typical fighter jet, and controlled by remote control from the ground, the Boeing-manufactured X-36 made a 20-minute flight Thursday morning, the first in what is expected to be a five- to 10-flight program dubbed RESTORE, for Reconfigurable Control for Tailless Fighter Aircraft fighter aircraft Aircraft designed primarily to secure control of essential airspace by destroying enemy aircraft in combat. Designed for high speed and maneuverability, they are armed with weapons capable of striking other aircraft in flight. . The program will test a ``neural network'' software that allows an airplane to automatically reconfigure its flight control surfaces - like wing flaps - during flight. During the tests, damage will be simulated by sending a signal to the aircraft to keep a flight control surface in a fixed position. ``Sensing the condition, the system will use other flight controls to compensate for that,'' said Gary Cosentino, NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. Dryden Flight Research Center's X-36 program manager. Such a system could save battle-damaged military jets or save commercial jets that had an in-flight mechanical failure. ``Boeing sees it having applications to any aircraft we have with digital software,'' said Gary Jennings Gary Jennings (September 20 1928 – February 13 1999) was a U.S. author who wrote children and adult novels. In 1980, after the successful novel Aztec, he specialized in writing adult historical fiction novels. , Boeing's X-36 program manager. The X-36 is a single-engine aircraft, 18 feet long, with a wingspan of 10 feet - about 28 percent as large as a full-scale fighter aircraft. The aircraft is flown by a pilot operating from a ground station. The airplane will be flown at altitudes of about 15,000 to 20,000 feet and at speeds ranging from about 140 mph to 185 mph. Two X-36 aircraft were built in St. Louis by the Phantom Works, a McDonnell Douglas McDonnell Douglas was a major American aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor, producing a number of famous commercial and military aircraft. It merged with Boeing in 1997 to form The Boeing Company. operation before Boeing bought it. The two airplanes were flight-tested at Dryden last year in a program to prove it was possible to design a tailless fighter. The yaw yaw, in aviation: see airplane; airfoil. See pitch-yaw-roll. motion - the side-to-side movement of the aircraft's nose, normally controlled by a rudder at the tail - is controlled through the use of split ailerons. The ailerons raise and lower in a normal fashion to provide roll control. The RESTORE program is an effort by the Air Force Research Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio Dayton is a city in southwestern Ohio, United States. It is the county seat and largest city of Montgomery County. As of the 2005 census estimate, the population of Dayton was 158,873. , NASA Dryden and the Naval Air Systems Command The Naval Air Systems Command, or NAVAIR, is the part of the United States Navy which provides materiel support for naval aircraft and airborne weapon systems, such as guided missiles. NAVAIR was established in 1966 as the successor to the Navy's Bureau of Naval Weapons (BuWeps). , Patuxent River The Patuxent River is a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay in the state of Maryland. There are three main river drainages for central Maryland: the Potomac River to the west passing through Washington D.C. , Md. It cost about $1 million to develop RESTORE. The flight testing at Dryden will cost about $500,000, said Jim Buffington, the Air Force Research Laboratory's X-36 program manager. The military is interested in tailless aircraft for a couple of reasons. First there is a savings in the weight of the aircraft, increasing the aircraft's range. Second, a tailless aircraft is stealthier because it leaves a smaller image for radar. CAPTION(S): Photo PHOTO Technicians test NASA's X-36, a remotely piloted aircraft that is designed to fly tailless. |
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