Click here for large view [~750k]
“Skyray 48’s airborne,” Boeing pilot Norm Howell called, matter-of-factly. And with that, years of toil blossomed into the sweet fruit of success on July 20, 2007 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center on Edwards AFB, Calif.
One of the latest cutting-edge experimental aircraft, or X-Planes, the X-48B BWB is a collaborative effort of the Boeing Co., NASA’s Fundamental Aeronautics Program, and the Air Force Research Laboratory. The 21-foot wingspan, 500-pound, remotely piloted plane is designed to demonstrate the viability of the blended wing shape. And demonstrate it has.
The composite-skinned, 8.5 percent scale vehicle can to fly up to 10,000 feet and 120 knots in its low-speed configuration. The aircraft is flown remotely from a ground control station by a pilot using conventional aircraft controls and instrumentation, while looking at a monitor fed by a forward-looking camera on the aircraft.
So far, so good!
Nice that it’s quiet, uses less fuel, but can you imagine air pockets and wind turbulence?
Has to be worst that our current jumbo jets, this thing is all wing.
This is also going to be a bitch to pressurize. Planes are shaped like long tubes since it’s a shape that’s easier to manufacture and easier to seal. This type of body represents a great challenge in engineering.
turbulence has shown to be almost Nill.
As the wing is wide enough to Over fly them, insted of the Thin wings that DROP into them.
there is 1, only 1, MAJOR draw back to this configuration…
NO HIGH BANKING.
NO Wide/long wing craft can take a HIGH bank, they DROP to fast, as they cant keep the Air pressure under the wing STRONG enough to keep them up.
Why is NASA spending taxpayer money on this in the first place?
If it were really cutting edge, truly experimental, then fine… but that is not the case with this airplane.
It seems like they could have set mission parameters, and let private industry develop and sell the concept… as is, we the taxpayers will spend money on this, then if they decide to use the technology, the private industry will get the technology for free and then charge us billions to redevelop it.
NASA has lost it’s reason for being. We have NO manned orbiter program (the shuttle is a bad joke), unmanned science is cut to the bone, and NASA is playing around with tinkertoys. NASA needs to be revamped from the ground up, maybe even closed down and started over. As is, it is actually a drag on the competitiveness and technological future of America.
new concept?
Look up Go 229 / Horten IX
There’s your new Concept.
Over 60 years since.
pj
#4 – If the government doesn’t help fund this type of research another government inevitably will. NASA is about more that sending people into space, you know.
#5, pj, The Horten IX was a flying wing. This is a blended body aircraft, a cutting edge design created by Nasa, Boeing and the USAF. Consider the B-2 and how technologically advanced it is.
The research on this probably cost less than a couple of weeks we spend in Iraq, and could lead to extremely efficient new aircraft (wish I could find the figures).
Nice pic here:
http://tinyurl.com/2k8bba
ECA, “NO Wide/long wing craft can take a HIGH bank, they DROP to fast, as they cant keep the Air pressure under the wing STRONG enough to keep them up.”
Lift is lift, a vector is a vector, and no aircraft can maintain altitude in extreme banks for long when the lift vector is pointed beyond 45 degrees from the vertical.
All the rest notwithstanding – Damn! but that’s gotta be the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen flying… and it simply reeks of the future.
I’ve seen this concept in a old Popular Mechanics mag years ago. Didn’t think that it would actually take off, but now that it’s viable, what’s the point of it? I love the history that NASA has made in the past but #4 is right on the fact that NASA has to be revamped. I’m an EE and I had dreams of working there. Now I don’t think I want to even go in that direction. Too many bad decisions, budget cuts, and poor judgment has stifled an otherwise successful branch of the government.
KM.
McDonnell Douglas (now absorbed into Boeing) has been working on this concept for at least 20 years. The real question is why has it taken so long?
Flying wings are the most efficient aircraft around. They’re all lift and little drag. A cargo version of this would be snapped up by Fedex and UPS in a heartbeat. The cargo capacity would be astounding.
Aircraft technology has changed much since the first flight of the Boeing Dash 80. Why no changes since then? There hasn’t been any real competition for Boeing. With Airbus breathing down their neck, free enterprise is forcing new and better ideas to the forefront.
Competition always improves the breed.
As for why NASA is involved? NASA has been doing research projects like this for decades. Virtually every X-plane ever created has been related to NASA or its predecessor NACA (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics). Heck, NACA was created in 1917, for crying out loud. This sort of stuff is nothing new.
NASA and NACA have been the driving force behind some of the greatest advancements in aeronautics. I just wish they would do more of this type of research.
It was called the Northrop YB-49 Flying Wing and it flew in 1950.
http://tinyurl.com/3du628
Google Images “flying wing” for a number of these interesting craft.
When you go to the Skyray enlargement, you see a vertical stabilizer not really apparent in the smaller photo above. Which is too bad since it would be cool to have the aircraft flying like the stealth B2 bomber without the drag of an upright fin. That is, stabilized by computer control and flying much like a bird. (BtW, I seem to recall the B2 being built by the Northrup successors.)
3 ECA & 7 BubbaRay I’d have to say you’re not quite correct in some respects. If you had enough power, you can steep turn an aircraft almost as much as you like. Up to a point, you don’t have to add any power. As an example, by adding power, you could remain in a 60 degree bank until your fuel was depleted. Such a plane with a 50kt stalling speed would now stall at 70 kts.
I speak from knowledge of small planes not large ones, however. I’m assuming the principles are the same. It may be the Skyray has an enormously high stalling speed and is terribly underpowered.
But as you say BR, a vector is a vector, and certainly the Skyray wing itself does not know or much care if the lift pressures from wind under its wing (+ Bernoulli lift) are at an angle from the horizon.
RBG
#11, RBG, technically, you’re correct. With enough power (and some help from a large enough rudder), an aircraft can be flown in some crazy configurations. As long as there is enough lift vector to cancel the weight of the aircraft in the vertical direction, you can fly all day in close to a 90 degree bank.
I’d like a stunt plane that could literally “hang from the prop”, but I doubt there are many with a power / weight ratio to accomplish that. Man oh man, that would be cool, wouldn’t it?
12. BR: Isn’t that called a helicopter? ;^)
Of course, It isn’t the rudder that keeps the aircraft in the turn but the wing itself. (Rudder isn’t even used while in the turn, and if you’d accept a sloppy turn, not even initially. Try that on MS Flight Simulator.) But I think you’re referring to some esoteric aerobatic maneuvers.
As you say, instead of all the lift going towards keeping the aircraft up, its now also being used to pull the aircraft in the direction of the turn. That’s why more power is usually needed to make up for the loss of vertical vector.
More lift required means more drag.
60 degrees = 40% increase in stall speed
75 = 100%
80 = 140%
(Transport Canada)
Forgetting about structural integrity for the moment, I wonder what the stall sped of 90 degrees would be? 200%? My example aircraft would be stalling close to its cruise speed.
RBG
Actually, if my aircraft was a Cessna 172 (with a top speed of about 125 kts), it couldn’t fly in a 90 degree configuration. I mixed up mph & kts. But, given my made-up 200% stall speed, its bigger cousin, a turbo C-182 Skylane, could just barely do it at its top speed of 149kts and dirty stall of 49kts. But you know, I’ll bet that 90 degree stall speed is calculated logarithmically or such and probably is astronomical.
RBG
And while I’m at it, another correction.
What looked to me to be an edge-on vertical stabilizer proved to be an optical illusion and a different view shows this to be a mere antenna (for R/C?) or fairing or for weight & balance.
http://www.european-antennas.co.uk/images/boeingx48b.jpg
Making this a very cool craft indeed.
RBG
My God, why do I put myself through this?
Well, since I raised it, I feel a high moral obligation to figure exactly what that thing sticking out of its rear end really is. Interestingly, and what supported my initial confusion, is that it doesn’t actually extend directly rearward but up at an angle of, what, 15 degrees.
http://tinyurl.com/35d2dq
“With its spin parachute tail stinger extending aft, Boeing’s sub-scale X-48B BWB technology demonstrator shows off its clean semi-triangular shape.”
http://tinyurl.com/yo85k4
RBG
RBG, you’ll probably never see this, but what the heck.
In normal flight rudder is used only to make a “co-ordinated” turn — that’s why there’s a ball in the turn & bank instrument and why your behind doesn’t slide across the seat in excessive maneuvering. In a few aerobatic maneuvers like a 4 rev slow roll throughout a 360 degree turn, your feet can get a great workout on the pedals.
Stall speed is a function of angle of attack, not G force. You’re correct that in a steep bank, the angle of attack is much greater. You can stall an airplane at any speed if you exceed max AOA.
I’ve never flown a PC simulator, only these aerobatic craft: an Air Tractor, a Decathlon, a Citabria (my own) and a Stearman. And you’re right — the rudder is absolutely required in violent maneuvers like a lomchavok, snap roll, etc. In a very steep bank, it’s absolutely required to maintain altitude (at least that’s been my experience). Unfortunately, I’m a low timer, only about 5,000 hours in wood and fabric, so I learn something new just about every time I say “Clear.”
Oh, yah but have you ever flown a Cessna 172? :^)
I bow immediately to your greater knowledge without hesitation.
Now, you don’t normally use a rudder during the actual turn, you would agree.
As we both said, you use it to initiate the turn in a coordinated way and when you don’t, your bum slides… what I called in ordinary language, a sloppy turn.
I suspect what we’re both saying is neither wrong nor mutually exclusive. My info comes from Transport Canada’s Flight Training Manual 4th edition pg 63 Figure 2-16 “The relationship between angle of Bank, Load Factor and basic stall speed.” And my own measly pilot’s license.
And now after another look at your comment, I think I may see the problem. I’m talking bank angle and you are talking lift vector angle.
Happy flying,
RBG
#18, Oh, yah but have you ever flown a Cessna 172?
RBG, I trained in a 172 and owned one for many years.
I think we’re talking about the same thing, just in different ways. After a few thousand hours you don’t even look at the ball, your feet just seem to do the right thing. 🙂
Clear skies to you!
Just like my old C-310L– http://tinyurl.com/2x3n8q
The airplane I really want— http://tinyurl.com/2u3xtu
#19, Darned wordpress screws up Tinyurl by replacing the “X’ with some ridiculous “times” symbol. You’ll have to copy the URL to a new tab and replace wordpress’ funky “x” with a real “X”. Or, since the thread is so old and no one cares, just click below.
Just like my old C-310L
http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/Previews/C310/images/800/REAL/FLIGHT3.jpg
I had no doubt you flew 172s and a lot of other stuff…
Now as for the 310… dare I even mention “Sky King?”
Well I actually have experience with B52s. I recall my Army Reserve lads and I ordered to make camp in the dark somewhere mostly unknown. Cut to the loudest noise known to humankind and me scrambling out of the tent on all fours. We were just off the end of a runway with a line of B52s taking off. I’m just realizing now the whole thing was probably a set up.
RBG
#21, RBG, my cousin was a B-52 driver out of Carswell. I asked for the big favor, but he was never able to get me on board. Nuclear stuff, I guess. But at Carswell they were always nice about an impromptu GCA approach — just make sure you don’t actually touch down!
Great story about the B-52s, I’ll bet you didn’t need coffee for a whole day! I got to watch ’em scramble out of Carswell during a fly-in breakfast for the public. Only time I got land on a mil-base with simulated carrier landings and to sit in an F-16.
Here’s another B-52 that even you or I could probably fly!
http://tinyurl.com/2ebsk3
Geez, that B52 footage was amazing. Are each of those engines an active jet turbine? Who makes such engines, anyway? Maybe some of them or just the inline rear one? I originally guessed I’d be seeing a prop-driven induction engine. How would you transport this thing?
I once was given permission to land a 172 on a Canadian Air Force runway on military business. Should have read more carefully about the arrestor cable across it. Had to make quite the stop.
RBG
#23, RBG, R/C engine specs are here, I don’t know how many pods were active, but at least two if not four. That’s one monster R/C!! I haven’t been able to find out much more about it, but I agree, that video was superb.
http://usamt.com/Mel/comm/comm_products.html
There’s a lot of cool tech and other wacky stuff on Cage Match. You should go explore.