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X-planes
The X-planes are a series of experimental United States aircraft and rockets, used to test and evaluate new technologies and aerodynamic concepts. They have an X designator within the United States Department of Defense aerospace vehicle designation, US system of aircraft designations, which denotes the experimental research mission. Not all US experimental aircraft have been designated as X-planes; some received List of United States Navy aircraft designations (pre-1962), US Navy designations before 1962, while others have been known only by manufacturers' designations, non-'X'-series designations, or classified codenames. This list only includes the designated X-planes. History The X-planes concept officially came into being in 1944, as a joint programme involving the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the US Navy (USN) and the US Army Air Forces (USAAF), in order to pursue research into high-speed aircraft.Miller 1983, p.9. NACA later became the National Ae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North American X-15
The North American X-15 is a Hypersonic speed, hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft which was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the List of X-planes, X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, crossing the Kármán line, edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. The X-15's highest speed, , X-15 Flight 188, was achieved on 3October 1967, when William J. Knight flew at Mach number, Mach6.7 at an altitude of , or 19.34miles. This set the Flight airspeed record, official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken. During the X-15 program, 12pilots flew a combined 199flights. Of these, 8pilots flew a combined 13flights which met the Air Force human spaceflight, spaceflight criterion by exceeding the altitude of , thus qualifying these pilots as bei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bell X-1
The Bell X-1 (Bell Model 44) is a rocket engine–powered aircraft, designated originally as the XS-1, and was a joint National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics– U.S. Army Air Forces– U.S. Air Force supersonic research project built by Bell Aircraft. Conceived during 1944 and designed and built in 1945, it achieved a speed of nearly in 1948. A derivative of this same design, the #X-1A, Bell X-1A, having greater fuel capacity and hence longer rocket burning time, exceeded in 1954. The X-1 aircraft #46-062, nicknamed ''Glamorous Glennis'' and flown by Chuck Yeager, was the first piloted airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight and was the first of the X-plane (aircraft), X-planes, a series of American experimental rocket planes (and non-rocket planes) designed for testing new technologies. Design and development Parallel development In 1942, the United Kingdom's Ministry of Aviation began a top secret project with Miles Aircraft to develop the world's first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is a research and development agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military. Originally known as the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the agency was created on February 7, 1958, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in response to the Soviet launching of Sputnik 1 in 1957. By collaborating with academia, industry, and government partners, DARPA formulates and executes research and development projects to expand the frontiers of technology and science, often beyond immediate U.S. military requirements.Dwight D. Eisenhower and Science & Technology, (2008). Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial CommissionSource The name of the organization first changed from its founding name, ARPA, to DARPA, in March 1972, changing back to ARPA in February 1993, then reverted to DARPA in March 1996. ''The Economist'' has called DARPA "the agency that shaped the mo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States Department Of Defense Aerospace Vehicle Designation
Joint Regulation 4120.15E: Designating and Naming Military Aerospace Vehicles is the current system for designating all aircraft, helicopters, rockets, missiles, spacecraft, and other aerial vehicles in military use by the United States Armed Forces. History United States Department of Defense Directive 4120.15 "Designating and Naming Military Aircraft, Rockets, and Guided Missiles" was originally issued November 24, 1971 and named the Air Force as the Executive Agent empowered to carry out the directive. Directive 4120.15 was implemented by Air Force Regulation (AFR) 82-1/Army Regulation (AR) 70-50/Naval Material Command Instruction (NAVMATINST) 8800.4A on March 27, 1974. The Joint Regulation designation system was heavily based upon the 1962 US Tri-Service aircraft designation system but also took control of the previously separate designation system for missiles and drones. The current version was enacted by Joint Regulation 4120.15E Designating and Naming Military Aerosp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grumman X-29
The Grumman X-29 is an American experimental aircraft that tested a forward-swept wing, canard control surfaces, and other novel aircraft technologies. Funded by NASA, the United States Air Force and DARPA, the X-29 was developed by Grumman, and the two built were flown by NASA and the United States Air Force. The aerodynamic instability of the X-29's airframe required the use of computerized fly-by-wire control. Composite materials were used to control the aeroelastic divergent twisting experienced by forward-swept wings, and to reduce weight. The aircraft first flew in 1984, and two X-29s were flight tested through 1991. Design and development Two X-29As were built by Grumman after the proposal had been chosen over a competing one involving a General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon. The X-29 design made use of the forward fuselage and nose landing gear from two existing F-5A Freedom Fighter airframes (63-8372 became 82-0003 and 65-10573 became 82-0049). The control surface a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
US Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionary warfare, expeditionary and amphibious operations through combined arms, implementing its own infantry, artillery, Aerial warfare, aerial, and special operations forces. The U.S. Marine Corps is one of the six United States Armed Forces, armed forces of the United States and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. The Marine Corps has been part of the United States Department of the Navy since 30 June 1834 with its sister service, the United States Navy. The USMC operates List of United States Marine Corps installations, installations on land and aboard sea-going amphibious warfare ships around the world. Additionally, several of the Marines' tactical Naval aviation, aviation squadrons, primarily Marine Fighter Att ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocket Plane
A rocket (from , and so named for its shape) is a vehicle that uses jet propulsion to accelerate without using any surrounding air. A rocket engine produces thrust by reaction to exhaust expelled at high speed. Rocket engines work entirely from propellant carried within the vehicle; therefore a rocket can fly in the vacuum of space. Rockets work more efficiently in a vacuum and incur a loss of thrust due to the opposing pressure of the atmosphere. Multistage rockets are capable of attaining escape velocity from Earth and therefore can achieve unlimited maximum altitude. Compared with airbreathing engines, rockets are lightweight and powerful and capable of generating large accelerations. To control their flight, rockets rely on momentum, airfoils, auxiliary reaction engines, gimballed thrust, momentum wheels, deflection of the exhaust stream, propellant flow, spin, or gravity. Rockets for military and recreational uses date back to at least 13th-century China. Sig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sound Barrier
The sound barrier or sonic barrier is the large increase in aerodynamic drag and other undesirable effects experienced by an aircraft or other object when it approaches the speed of sound. When aircraft first approached the speed of sound, these effects were seen as constituting a barrier, making faster speeds very difficult or impossible. The term ''sound barrier'' is still sometimes used today to refer to aircraft approaching supersonic flight in this high drag regime. Flying faster than sound produces a sonic boom. In dry air at 20 °C (68 °F), the speed of sound is 343 metres per second (about 767 mph, 1234 km/h or 1,125 ft/s). The term came into use during World War II when pilots of high-speed fighter aircraft experienced the effects of compressibility, a number of adverse aerodynamic effects that deterred further acceleration, seemingly impeding flight at speeds close to the speed of sound. These difficulties represented a barrier to flying ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rockwell HiMAT
The Rockwell RPRV-870 HiMAT (Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technology) is an experimental remotely piloted aircraft that was produced for a NASA program to develop technologies for future fighter aircraft. Among the technologies explored were close-coupled canards, fully digital flight control (including propulsion), composite materials (graphite and fiberglass), remote piloting, synthetic vision systems, winglets, and others. Two aircraft were produced by Rockwell International. Their first flights took place in 1979, and testing was completed in 1983. Design and development The HiMATs were remotely piloted, as the design team decided that it would be cheaper and safer to not risk a pilot's life during the experiments. This also meant that no ejection seat would have to be fitted. The aircraft was flown by a pilot in a remote cockpit, and control signals up-linked from the flight controls in the remote cockpit on the ground to the aircraft, and aircraft telemetry downlinked to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lifting Body
A lifting body is a fixed-wing aircraft or spacecraft configuration in which the body itself produces lift (force), lift. In contrast to a flying wing, which is a wing with minimal or no conventional fuselage, a lifting body can be thought of as a fuselage with little or no conventional wing. Whereas a flying wing seeks to maximize cruise efficiency at Subsonic flight, subsonic speeds by eliminating non-lifting surfaces, lifting bodies generally minimize the drag and structure of a wing for subsonic, supersonic and hypersonic flight, or spacecraft re-entry. All of these flight regimes pose challenges for proper flight safety. Lifting bodies were a major area of research in the 1960s and 1970s as a means to build a small and lightweight crewed spacecraft. The US built a number of lifting body rocket planes to test the concept, as well as several rocket-launched re-entry vehicles that were tested over the Pacific. Interest waned as the US Air Force lost interest in the crewed missio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Martin Marietta X-24
The Martin Marietta X-24 is an American experimental aircraft developed from a joint United States Air Force–NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). It was designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered reentry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle. also available as a PDF file'. Originally built as the X-24A, the aircraft was later rebuilt as the X-24B. The X-24 was Drop test, drop launched from a modified Boeing B-52 Stratofortress, B-52 Stratofortress at high altitudes before igniting its rocket engine; after expending its rocket fuel, the pilot would gliding flight, glide the X-24 to an unpowered landing. Design and development The X-24 was one of a group of lifting bodies flown by the NASA Flight Research Center (now Armstrong Flight Research Center) in a joint program with the U.S. Air Force at Edwards Air Force Base in California from 1963 to 1975. The lifting bodies were used to demonstrate the ability of pilots ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Variable-sweep Wing
A variable-sweep wing, colloquially known as a "swing wing", is an airplane wing, or set of wings, that may be modified during flight, swept back and then returned to its previous straight position. Because it allows the aircraft's shape to be changed, it is a feature of a variable-geometry aircraft. A straight wing is most efficient for low-speed flight, but for an aircraft designed for transonic or supersonic flight it is essential that the wing be swept. Most aircraft that travel at those speeds usually have wings (either swept wing or delta wing) with a fixed sweep angle. These are simple and efficient wing designs for high speed flight, but there are performance tradeoffs. One is that the stalling speed is increased, necessitating long runways (unless complex high-lift wing devices are built in). Another is that the aircraft's fuel consumption during subsonic cruise is higher than that of an unswept wing. These tradeoffs are particularly acute for naval carrier-bas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
