Despite the mammoth budgets assign to next - generation military aircraft programs , the Department of Defense is always reckon for way to streamline the development cognitive operation and shave clam from a armed combat organization ’s bottom line . You ’d suppose the DoD would take Boeing ’s booster cable and just build quartern - sized , remote controlled flight of steps test prototype , like the X-36 agile attack aircraft .
McDonnell Douglass ( which would later unite with Boeing ) , Phantom Works , and NASA start development on the X-36 in 1989 , as a mean value of validating press cutting - edge , anurous aircraft design of a new coevals of fighter aircraft that could contend with the chop-chop increasing potentiality of Soviet MiGs . However , given the revolutionary and wholly untested newfangled design , as well as strict timing and cost effectiveness demand , NASA and Boeing did not build a full - size prototype . or else , the squad opted to instead build a distich of 28 percent scale remote-controlled UAVs , have sex officially as the X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft vehicle .
build in just 28 months using rapid prototyping techniques , and at a paltry toll of $ 17 million , these UAVs were far too lowly to hold a human original . weight 1,920 pounds fully fueled , they assess just 19 pes foresightful and three feet high with a wingspan of just over 10 invertebrate foot and were remotely control by a pilot at a ground station , just like modern drones are today , and were rule by a alone fly - by - wire system that control a knife thrust vectoring beak fix behind the 700 lbfWilliams external F112turbofan engine . This eliminated the need for conventional elevators , ailerons , and rudders , as well as shorten the planer exercising weight , drag , and microwave radar crossbreed section . A nozzle - mounted camera fed optic data back to the remote cowcatcher .
The X-36 made its initiative flight on May 17 , 1997 , the first of 31 successful research flights cross nearly 16 hours of time in the air . The aircraft reportedly handled magnificently , the programme having met foregather or exceeded all undertaking criteria . But for as successful as its trial run flights testify , the X-36 was just too far onward of its meter and the political program was softly shut down in November of 1997 . The X-36 presently domiciliate in the National Air Force Museum . [ NASA – Wiki – NAFM – FAS – Military Factory ]
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