DRYDEN TO FLIGHT TEST SCALE MODEL X-36 JET.Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer A small remote-controlled tailless airplane airplane, aeroplane, or aircraft, heavier-than-air vehicle, mechanically driven and fitted with fixed wings that support it in flight through the dynamic action of the air. being developed jointly by NASA NASA: see National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA in full National Aeronautics and Space Administration Independent U.S. and 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. will be flight tested at Dryden Flight Research Center The Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC), located inside Edwards Air Force Base, is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. On March 26, 1976 it was named in honor of the late Hugh L. later this year. NASA and McDonnell Douglas have joined in a $17 million project to design and build two tailless X-36 jets that will be only 28 percent as large as full-scale aircraft. The first X-36 aircraft is expected to roll out at McDonnell Douglas' St. Louis plant March 19. Following the rollout, the aircraft will be shipped to Dryden to be prepared for its first flight in either late June or July. "Affordability was a key issue in selecting a subscale vehicle," said Dave Manley, McDonnell Douglas' X-36 project manager. "At 28 percent scale we will be able to demonstrate all of the key controls integration technologies at a fraction of the cost of a full-scale, piloted aircraft." A tailless aircraft A tailless or tail-less aeroplane traditionally has all its horizontal control surfaces on its main wing surface. It has no (horizontal stabilizer - either tailplane or canard foreplane (nor does it have a second wing in tandem arrangement). offers a couple of benefits, officials say. 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. "We personally feel that this is a fairly significant leap forward," said Larry Birckelbaw, X-36 program manager for NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffet Field. "It's a break in the paradigm of how aircraft are designed." The X-36 will be a single-engine aircraft 18 feet long with a wing span of 10 feet. The aircraft will weigh 1,300 pounds. The aircraft's design is being kept secret until its rollout March 19. The X-36 will use a technology called thrust vectoring Thrust vectoring is the ability of an aircraft or other vehicle to direct the thrust from its main engine(s) in a direction other than parallel to the vehicle's longitudinal axis. that was developed on a number of test programs at Edwards over the past several years. Thrust vectoring involves directing the blast from a jet engine's exhaust Exhaust may refer to: In mathematics:
Test programs at Edwards, notably the joint U.S.-German X-31 program at Dryden, have shown that thrust vectoring helps an airplane twist and turn better than conventional aircraft - a valuable asset for a fighter jet in air-to-air combat. Researchers expect the X-36 will be more agile than the F-18, regarded as the most agile jet used by the U.S. military. McDonnell Douglas first proposed the idea of using a subscale prototype to prove the concept of a tailless fighter in 1993. NASA and McDonnell Douglas have agreed to split the development costs about 50-50. The aircraft are being produced by McDonnell Douglas's Phantom Works, a Skunk skunk, name for several related New World mammals of the weasel family, characterized by their conspicuous black and white markings and use of a strong, highly offensive odor for defense. Works-like company that is trying to produce products in less time and at significantly lower costs. |
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