NASA and Boeing to Create Experimental Aircraft for Sustainable Flight Demonstrator Initiative
The US Air Force has approved the project of the X-66A experimental aircraft as part of the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator initiative (stable flight demonstrator), according to an announcement made by NASA and Boeing. This project aims to test a new type of wing that will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the efficiency of flight.
X-66A will be the first of the X-sarckers developed to help the United States achieve a zeroing of aviation emissions by 2050. Boeing, working together with NASA, will modernize the MD-90 passenger aircraft, shorten its fuselage and replace wings and engines, resulting in an airplane with long, narrow wings supported by diagonal racks, according to the principle of the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (transza wing on the support farm).
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said, “X-66A will form the future of aviation, opening a new era where the aircraft will become more environmentally friendly and quiet, and provide new opportunities for passengers and American industry.”
The program started in the 1940s, with NASA’s predecessor, the National Consultative Committee on Aeronautics, working on its first program of experimental aircraft in cooperation with the Air Force and the US Navy. The X-Samolets program showed the world its first aircraft that overcame the sound barrier, the first aircraft with a variable arrowing of the wing and a number of hypersonic flight tests.
The chief technologist of Boeing, Todd Citron said, “We are incredibly proud of obtaining this status, since the X-66A will become the next link in the chain of experimental aircraft serving for testing breakthrough structures that transformed aviation.” Citron probably hopes for success, as Boeing finances most of the SFD project.
While NASA plans to spend $425 million over the next seven years, Boeing plans to invest approximately $725 million to achieve the project’s goal of zeroing emissions by aviation by 2050. “In order to achieve our goal of zeroing emissions by aviation by 2050, we need innovative aircraft concepts similar to those we test on the X-66A,” said Bob Pierce, Deputy Administrator of the NASA for aeronautical research.