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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. [1]
The Grumman Corporation was chosen in December 1981 to receive an $87 million contract to build two X-29 aircraft. They were to become the first new X-series aircraft in more than a decade. First flight of the No. 1 X-29 was Dec. 14, 1984, while the No. 2 aircraft first flew on May 23, 1989.
On Dec. 13, 1985, the X-29 became the first forward-swept-wing airplane in the world to exceed Mach 1 in level flight, and flight results showed that a highly unstable aircraft with forward-swept wings could be flown safely with excellent maneuverability and high G-loads.
The December 14, 1984, test flight of the X-29—the most aerodynamically unstable aircraft ever built—demonstrated forward-swept wing technology for supersonic fighter aircraft for the first time.
Research results showed that the configuration of forward-swept wings, coupled with movable canards, gave pilots excellent control response at up to 45 degrees angle of attack, higher than compa-rable fighter aircraft. During its flight history, X-29s were flown on 422 research missions.
Created at the height of the Cold War by a conglomerate of giants – NASA, the US Air Force, the “men in black” at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and aerospace behemoth...
Without flying a single combat mission, the X-29 has become a part of military aviation history for its bold development of new technologies, some of which informed the design of many of the...
The X-29A was designed and fabricated primarily on the basis of aerodynamic and structural computer design codes, with a minimal amount of wind-tunnel testing and configuration development. Thus, the success of the X-29A design relies heavily on the analytical design codes and methods. Aircraft Description The X-29A is a single-seat fighter ...
The X-29, featuring one of the most unusual aircraft designs in aviation history, was flown by the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, as a technology demonstrator to investigate a host of advanced concepts and technologies.
The X-29 is a single-seat, single-engine supersonic aircraft that blends an optimized FSW, a close-coupled near-coplar canard, an F-5A forward fuselage module employing two side-mounted engine inlets, and a new aft fuselage.