New X-plane

[piginapoke]

DARPA announced this week a new X-plane, the X-65 CRANE (Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors). In short it uses burst of air instead of control surfaces.

Interestingly, 60 years ago (near to the day) the X-21 used a similar design idea of holes in the surface, in that case it was for boundary layer control. Unfortunately, constant maintenance to keep the holes free of debris proved too difficult a problem and the project cancelled. Hopefully this design will not be affected.

Looking further ahead, two designs earmarked for X designations are the Liberry Lifter transport seaplane, and the no runway, high speed special operations transport SPIRIT (Speed and Runway Independent Technologies).


Meet the X-65: DARPA’s New Plane Has No External Control Surfaces

Two Companies Working Toward Full-Scale Liberty Lifter X-Plane - IEEE Spectrum

DARPA To Launch High-Speed, No-Runway Aircraft Program - Defense One

[Mike1158]

BaE have been doing that for at least the last ten years mate.

[piginapoke]

And another X-plane! The X-66A Transonic Truss-Braced Wing.

A paper model of this would be easier starting from a clean sheet than to modify a MD-90.

Next Generation Experimental Aircraft Becomes NASA’s Newest X-Plane | NASA

[Phillip Wingrove]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention! So they have at last caught up with the huge Soviet seaplanes.... Could be a nice diorama too.

[Phillip Wingrove]

Here's another, the Lockheed ring wing. Found a nice documentary on it too What Happened To Ring Wing Planes? - YouTube Too much drag and cross-wind interference though. To my recollection, I sure I remember the US and Australia working on a lifting body airliner that also had very high speed to be anywhere in a few hours. I haven't found that again. Everything seems to talk of normal speed, other than the UK Sabre rocket/jet engine. Any ideas?

[piginapoke]

Originally Posted by Phillip Wingrove

Here's another, the Lockheed ring wing. Found a nice documentary on it too What Happened To Ring Wing Planes? - YouTube Too much drag and cross-wind interference though. To my recollection, I sure I remember the US and Australia working on a lifting body airliner that also had very high speed to be anywhere in a few hours. I haven't found that again. Everything seems to talk of normal speed, other than the UK Sabre rocket/jet engine. Any ideas?

That was probably the X-30 demonstrator aircraft which ultimately may have being able to get from Eastern seaboard to Tokyo in 2 hours (aka 'Orient Express'). There is a simple glider model out there but ive not seen a detailed version.

[Phillip Wingrove]

Hi. Thank you. I have also found the glider kit you've mentioned. Unfortunately, maybe they feel that like the dreadnoughts one super new airliner will make all of their own obsolete, not only everyone else's. Let's hope that someone takes the plunge. Any thoughts? America or UK-Japan, or a big company like Toyota ( makes as much money from investments as all but the biggest banks)? I found this interesting company from Florida who seem to be looking for investment. Io Aircraft. Could be the next airline models? :-) IO Aircraft - BlueEdge - Mach 8-10 220 Passenger Hypersonic Commercial Aircraft

[Phillip Wingrove]

Are you going to be building commodore 64 games into the arcade machine?