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FUNDS SOUGHT FOR ADDITIONAL X-31 FLIGHTS.


Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

Officials with the X-31 "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. " experimental aircraft program are trying to arrange funding to continue test flights for three more years.

If the officials are successful, the German-American plane would make more than 200 additional flights at a cost of $60 million to $80 million, employing more than 100 people - about the same as its peak before testing wound down last summer.

"Hopefully, we're going to start up in spring with the phase two program," said Fred Knox, an engineering test pilot with Rockwell International Rockwell International was the ultimate incarnation of a series of companies under the sphere of influence of Willard Rockwell, who had made his fortune after the invention and successful launch of a new bearing system for truck axles in 1919. , co-builder of the aircraft.

Besides Rockwell, the test program is a joint effort by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), civilian agency of the U.S. federal government with the mission of conducting research and developing operational programs in the areas of space exploration, artificial satellites (see satellite, artificial), , the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Air Force, Daimler-Benz and the German government, officials said. In the second phase of testing, the participants may expand to include Great Britain Great Britain, officially United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, constitutional monarchy (2005 est. pop. 60,441,000), 94,226 sq mi (244,044 sq km), on the British Isles, off W Europe. The country is often referred to simply as Britain.  and Sweden, Knox said.

"The contracts are not signed," Knox added, speaking after a Lancaster Chamber of Commerce luncheon at which he explained the test program to local business people. "This is all in the preliminary (stages)."

A recipient in November of the Smithsonian Institute's Air and Space Award, the X-31 first flew in 1990, and - with a second X-31 that crashed in January 1995 - completed more than 580 test flights.

The size of a small fighter jet, the delta wing delta wing
n.
An aircraft with swept-back wings that give it the appearance of an isosceles triangle.

Noun 1. delta wing - an airplane with wings that give it the appearance of an isosceles triangle
 X-31 uses paddlelike blades around its exhaust nozzle (Steam Engine) the blast orifice or nozzle.

See also: Exhaust
 to direct the jet blast Jet blast is the phenomenon of rapid air movement produced by the jet engines of aircraft, particularly on or before takeoff.

A large jet-engined aircraft can produce winds of up to 100 mph (160 km/h) up to 200 feet (60 m) behind it at 40% maximum rated power.
 - a system called thrust vectoring.

The ability to direct the exhaust enables the jet to twist and turn under conditions when other aircraft lose control. In close-quarters aerial combat, the plane that can do that has an advantage in aiming its short-range guided missiles, pilots say.

In the second phase of testing, the primary focus would be on examining the ability of the plane to use thrust vectoring to take off and land in extremely short distances, Knox said.

The X-31 can fly as slow as 60 mph, less than half the speed at which other jets would stall, he said.

"That 60 mph is down in the Cessna-type speed," Knox said.

The proposed flights also would test a new thrust-vectoring nozzle, suitable for mounting on production aircraft, in place of the simple paddles used on the test plane.

And they would fly the X-31 without its vertical tail fin. Although the aerodynamics aerodynamics, study of gases in motion. As the principal application of aerodynamics is the design of aircraft, air is the gas with which the science is most concerned.  of tailless subsonic aircraft, like the B-2 stealth bomber, are understood, there are no tailless supersonic aircraft.

Removing the tail is attractive to military designers because it makes a plane harder to spot on radar, and to commercial designers because it would reduce fuel consumption.

Near the end of the first phase of testing, the X-31 flew at Mach 1.1 with its flight control computers programmed to simulate flight without the tail fin.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Daily News
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1996, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Publication:Daily News (Los Angeles, CA)
Date:Jan 11, 1996
Words:465
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