Jul 26 2007
From The Space Library
The Boeing Company announced that, on 20 July, the X-48B flight-test vehicle, a Blended Wing Body (BWB) experimental aircraft, had made its first test flight. Boeing Phantom Works had developed the BWB in cooperation with NASA and the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory. The remotely controlled X-48B had taken off from NASA’s Edwards Air Force Base in California, climbing to an altitude of 7,500 feet (2,286 meters) and landing 31 minutes after takeoff. Boeing had developed two X-48B research vehicles to gather detailed information about the stability and flight-control characteristics of the BWB design, particularly during takeoff and landing. Previously, Boeing had used Ship 2, the test-flight vehicle, for ground and taxi testing. Ship 1, which had completed extensive testing in 2006 at the Old Dominion University’s NASA Langley Full-Scale Wind Tunnel in Virginia, was the backup vehicle for the flight-test program. The BWB design resembled a flying wing, but the wing blended smoothly into a wide, flat, tailless fuselage, helping the craft gain additional lift with less drag than a circular fuselage. NASA’s DFRC had provided engineering and technical support for the BWB, based on its years of operating cutting-edge, remotely controlled aircraft. NASA had focused on developing fundamental flight dynamics and structural concepts for the BWB, as well as helping to validate and verify its hardware and software and to integrate and test the aircraft’s systems and the pilot’s ground-control station. NASA’s range group had provided critical command and control communications and telemetry during the test flight.
NASA, “X-48B Blended Wing Body Research Aircraft Takes First Flight,” news release 07-165, 26 July 2007, http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2007/jul/HQ_07165_BWB_First_Flight.html (accessed 8 June 2010); Boeing Company, “Boeing Flies Blended Wing Body Research Aircraft,” news release, 26 July 2007, http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/2007/q3/070726c_nr.html (accessed 8 June 2010).
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