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Artist’s rendering of DARPA’s experimental X-65 CRANE aircraft being build by Aurora Flight Sciences.
(Image credit: DARPA)
DARPA and Aurora Flight Sciences have started building the first full-scale X-65 aircraft to showcase a new method of flight control without using any external moving parts.
The X-65 is an experimental jet being developed by the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program overseen by DARPA, (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Pentagon’s research and development agency. Since the first aircraft were invented, they have been controlled by moving surfaces such as rudders, flaps, elevators, and ailerons.
The CRANE program aims to eliminate these and develop an aircraft controlled entirely by jets of pressurized air that alter how the surrounding air flows over the aircraft while in flight.
Related: This wild DARPA CRANE X-plane could be a giant leap in aircraft design
However, the first X-65 demonstrator will, to minimize risk, feature both conventional moving control surfaces and what are known as active flow control (AFC) actuators, or jets of pressurized air.
“The X-65 conventional surfaces are like training wheels to help us understand how AFC can be used in place of traditional flaps and rudders,” Richard Wlezien, program manager for CRANE, said in a DARPA statement. “We’ll have sensors in place to monitor how the AFC effector’s performance compares with traditional control mechanisms, and these data will help us better understand how AFC could revolutionize both military and commercial craft in the future.”
The X-65 will feature a 30-foot (9-meter) wingspan and weigh 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg), making it roughly the size of the T-38 trainer aircraft used by NASA astronauts and the U.S. military. It will be able to reach speeds of up to Mach 0.7, which DARPA says will “make the flight-test results immediately relevant to real-world aircraft design.”
“The X-65 conventional surfaces are like training wheels to help us understand how AFC can be used in place of traditional flaps and rudders,” Wlezien said in the statement. “We’ll have sensors in place to monitor how the AFC effector’s performance compares with traditional control mechanisms, and these data will help us better understand how AFC could revolutionize both military and commercial craft in the future.”
The X-65 will even feature a modular design, meaning its wings and active flow control systems will be able to be swapped out in the future, allowing it to be used for additional testing in the future after the conclusion of the CRANE program.
In the statement, DARPA says the X-65 could be completed and unveiled as soon as early 2025, with the first flight occurring as soon as summer of 2025.
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