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Grumman X-29

1982 COLD WAR X-PLANE

History of the Grumman X-29

The Grumman X-29 aircraft was a technology demonstrator from the last years of the Cold War (1947-1991). The design has a unique shape - identifiable by its forward-swept wings - and is the first aircraft with this configuration to fly supersonic (the WWII-era Junkers Ju 287 was the first to use a forward-swept wing but Jets that have only flown subsonic).

The X-29 will serve as a flight test bed for seven years, starting in 1984, and has provided extensive research into advanced wing designs and movable canards.

Externally, the X-29 is a modified fuselage belonging to the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter light aircraft. The X-29 has a lightweight but composite-based rigid forward-swept monoplane wing protruding from the rear side of the fuselage. The cockpit is located at the front of the fuselage, and the single pilot can see through the glass roof. The aircraft displayed its canards behind the cockpit and forward of the main aircraft.

The tail includes a vertical tail. Horizontal stabilizers were not used because the main aircraft were located far enough aft to take their place. A General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofan for propulsion cost ?16,000.

All told, the plane can reach speeds of over Mach 1.5 and an altitude of 55,000 feet. Its landing gear supports components retained from the Northrop F-5, also carried from General Dynamics' F-16 Falcon.

The Grumman X-29 is an in-house complex design centered on three redundant fly-by-wire (FBW) computers, supported by three redundant analog computers. Fly-by-wire technology was necessary because the unconventional layout of the airframe proved to be extremely unstable in flight without assistance. The redundancy of the system ensures that the subsystems do not experience catastrophic flight failures, and the analog arrangement directly supports the digital suite for further resiliency.

The X-29 was a true test bed in the truest sense of the word, and its fly-by-wire technology is now commonplace on military and commercial aircraft.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is the primary operator of two completed X-29A demonstrators. Their serial numbers are 82-0003 and 82-0049. Their testing period spanned from 1984 to 1991 before the project officially ended.

The aircraft pairing subsequently proved the viability of many aviation concepts and helped propel U.S. military aviation into the ensuing decade.

The two working samples themselves managed to survive years of testing, with one of the demonstrators ending his career as an exhibit at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. Another lives at the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base.

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. displays a fiberglass scale model of the X-29 in its rafters.