Make an x plane aircraft for me1/1/2024 ![]() Note the early inward-canted twin tails, later modified to outward-canted tails on the F-117. Have Blue, the prototype for the first stealth aircraft. Like the QT-2, some of DARPA’s most successful X-plane programs made little noise, at least initially. Others were less successful, but “it was inculcated in me at DARPA,” Allburn said, “that we’re here to make mistakes, to have failures. Some X-plane programs, like QT-2, have been striking successes, yielding new technologies and even aircraft that have directly influenced military aviation. The former X-29 program manager explained that pushing boundaries is part of DARPA’s DNA. If it doesn’t, then you’ve shown it was too big a step.” “If you’re going to make an improvement, you might as well take a giant step,” James Allburn said. ![]() The leap in capability produced by DARPA’s first X-plane program is emblematic of the agency’s approach to X-plane development. Humble as the little plane was, it might be considered an early venture into the development of stealth aircraft. Army ordered 14, 13 of which entered service. The follow-on YO-3A placed the engine in a more conventional location at the nose, and the U.S. Employing a heavily muffled engine exhaust and a very slow-turning propeller, the QT-2 was virtually inaudible flying at 1,000 feet – the world’s quietest airplane at the time. An engine mounted on the fuselage behind the cockpit drove a 10-foot shaft connecting to a four-bladed propeller on a pylon at the nose of the aircraft. The program yielded a prototype within six months. Lockheed came up with the “Quiet Thruster,” a small, odd-looking propeller-driven aircraft based on the Schweizer SGS 2-32 sailplanes (X-26As) that the U.S. To solve the problem, DARPA (then ARPA) provided funding to Lockheed Martin in April 1967 to develop an airplane that would be nearly silent. The engine noise of American aircraft gave the enemy advanced warning and they simply vanished into the night. But too often, flights after dark yielded little information. forces conducted nighttime reconnaissance and surveillance by air. The QT-2 was the answer to a noisy problem.Ī merican and South Vietnamese troops in Vietnam fought primarily during daylight, while the opposition preferred to operate mostly under cover of darkness. The story of DARPA’s work on experimental aircraft programs began quietly – with a strange airplane that, ironically, wasn’t designated an “X” plane. Part 18: Artificial Intelligence to Accelerate Science.Part 16: DARPA’s 60-Year Space Adventure.Part 15: Spintronics: A DARPA-spurred Spin on Fundamental Electron Physics.Part 14: DARPA Ushers Game-changing Technology into the Real World.Part 13: DARPA and the Exploration of Artificial Intelligence.Part 12: DARPA’s Quest for a Beneficent Cyber Future.Part 11: Jump-starting Innovation: DARPA’s Grand Challenges.Part 10: A DARPA Perspective on the Development of the Internet.Part 8: The Evolution of Defense Technology: DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office.Part 7: Semiconductor Safari: Exotic Materials Beyond Silicon.Part 5: Fighting in Megacities: DARPA and Urban Combat.Part 4: The Intertwined History of DARPA and Moore’s Law.Part 3: DARPA Tiles Together a Vision of Mosaic Warfare.Part 1: DARPA: The Innovation Icon at 60.
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