you
for the past six years flights have been
made by a pair of x-29 aircraft from the
desert with NASA's Dryden Flight
Research
the x-29 requires a new breed of
aeronautical technology because it's
thin wings close-coupled canards the
smaller movable surfaces in front of the
wings and rear straight flaps make it
naturally unstable in flight to the
control the computers are is necessary
to fly the airplane is the hydraulic
system is that actually moves the
actuators steve ishmael one of the
program's principal test pilots has
experienced the benefits of combining
new interrelated technology into one
airplane it gets at another advance in
technology where you see the interaction
for instance between the canard and this
forward sweep and and that's that's very
very complex and it varies is your angle
attack and your Mach changes that's part
of the beauty in the problem of the art
of designing airplanes the advantage of
a forward swept design is that air
moving over the wing tends to flow in
word rather than outward this allows air
flow to remain smooth around the
wingtips and makes the x-29 easier to
control and extreme maneuvers it's
exceeded predicted levels
sometimes
modern fighter jets have trouble
handling anything in excess of 30
degrees six years the x-29 has proven
itself as a testbed for me
flight systems and the use of composites
in wing construction this highly
successful flight test program will
almost certainly influence future
commercial and fighter aircraft keeping
the United States and the forefront of