X Planes

The FAS is actually talking about 45 x-planes designed between 1945 and today. But there must be more than 50's in fact.

You must also consider that the actual competition between lockeed-martin, Northrop and Boeing should make critically increase the number of prototypes planes actually in project in the USA's.

But prototype are classified "X" when the project fall in the hand of the NASA enginers... 50 is s good number.

www.fas.org...



[edit on 22-9-2004 by Nans DESMICHELS]

But actually, there are no informations from X-35 to X-44.

Well if you also have jet engines straped on to it also of course when you shut off the rotors it will still fly, I really hope that Nasa didn't put money into this for that reason alone.

That drawing looks like the rotors cant move, unless I guess that after there shut down they lower to make it more aerodynamic.

I think that was the point, that it would fly anyway. No one had ever stopped a rotor in flight before, deliberately anyway. With this set up they could stop the rotor and measure the aerodynamic effects, such as lift generated, bending force on the blades etc etc. without the risk of losing everything if the rotor broke off because of aerodynamic forces or some other unforseen factor. Rather like when they mounted early jets in the rear fulelages of Lancasters to try them out in a relatively safe airborne environment. Obviously computer simulations would have predicted the behaviour of the rotor but these would have to be backed up by actually flying the hardware, for which there is no substitute. I believe that the next stage was to remove the wings and fly with the X-wing alone. This is where my knowledge runs out, I do not know if it flew in that configuration or if the results of the S-72 tests put them off the idea.

You know when you say that on the drawing the rotors look as if they can't move? I too have wondered about this. Apparently it was intended to retract after stopping into the position shown to improve the aerodynamics at high speed flight.


[edit on 22-9-2004 by waynos]

[edit on 22-9-2004 by waynos]

originally posted by: Nans DESMICHELS
But actually, there are no informations from X-35 to X-44.

This thread may be old, but a while back I e-mailed the FAS webmaster to update several pages under the heading "X-Planes" at the page "US Military Aircraft" because most of the links to those pages were broken, and he agreed to my request. Back in 2018, Lockheed Martin publicly unveiled the X-44 flying wing tech demonstrator for the P-175 and RQ-170, and it is possible that the X-44 designation was re-used for LM's flying wing after the X-44 MANTA program envisaged in 1999 was cancelled sometime in 2000 due to NASA's tight budget.

The recent book X-Planes from the X-1 to the X-60: An Illustrated History by Michael H. Gorn and Giuseppe De Chiara is the latest recommended reading every regarding American experimental aircraft with X-series designations, because it includes the most recently designated X-series vehicles. In total, 62 X-series designations have been allocated or reserved throughout history (note that the association in some literature of X-11 and X-12 with the Atlas A and Atlas B respectively is refuted by official USAF documents and Convair documents showing that X-11 and X-12 were designed as test vehicles for the Atlas ICBM when that missile was originally designed with five engines, but were canceled when the Atlas ICBM was redesigned as a three engine ICBM due to H-bomb tests in the Marshall Islands showed that thermonuclear warheads could easily be miniaturized).