Modern X-PLANES: The future of airpower

foreign group of advanced and experimental aircraft known as X Planes are quietly maturing towards changing the way we see and leverage Aviation Technology the world over these aircraft being developed by a combination of defense department insiders and America's leading Aerospace contractors offer us a tantalizing glimpse into the future of air power let's talk about the modern era of x-planes I'm Alex Hollings and this is air power X Planes have been a part of American Aviation for 77 years now dating back to the very first experimental aircraft ever to be given the moniker 1946's Bell X1 the rocket-powered X1 predates the establishment of the Air Force originally flying under the banners of the U.S Army Air Force and the national advisory committee for Aeronautics or NACA an X1 named glamorous glennis would go on to become the first crude aircraft to achieve supersonic flight in October of 1947 with flying ace Chuck Yeager at the stick 20 years later another rocket-powered X-Plane This Time piloted by William Pete Knight would set yet another groundbreaking speed record this time one that still stands today when his X-15 broached the notional Hypersonic barrier screaming across the sky it Mach 6.7 but x-planes aren't just about speed in 1984 the backward winged Grumman x-29 became the most unstable aircraft ever built this aerobatic aircraft design didn't catch on because of a number of complications but its innovative digital fly-by-wire flight controls and its use of advanced lightweight Composite Materials would go on to become standard fare and both tactical and Commercial aircraft designs to follow then in 2013 Northrop grumman's X-47B became the first pilotless tactical aircraft to perform both takeoffs and landings aboard an aircraft carrier two years later it made history Again by participating in the first ever autonomous aerial refueling these capabilities of course are now the backbone of the U.S Navy's mq-25 Stingray program in uncrewed drone refueler designed specifically for Carrier operations with more than 72 aircraft given the X-Plane designation over the years America's experimental aircraft programs have become renowned not just for their groundbreaking firsts but for their ability to bring new technologies materials production methodologies and even Aviation Concepts to fruition many of which go on to become foundational aspects of Aerospace development in the years that follow and armed with that understanding it's tough not to get a little bit excited when we look at the x-planes and development today because in a real way it's like peering Through the Looking Glass at what Aviation Technology very likely will become in the years ahead so let's run through four x-planes in active development as we speak as well as their intended outcomes and what implications they may have for aviation in general and of course air power in particular and we'll start with darpa's x65 crane which is short for control of revolutionary aircraft with novel effectors put simply crane aims to eliminate the need for primary moving flight control surfaces things like ailerons Rudders and elevators on aircraft now that may sound kinda dry but if you're familiar with Aviation Technology you probably already realize that this is a huge deal it could really lead to the biggest shift in aircraft design since the Inception of stealth more than a half century ago the entire crane program is built upon the concept of active flow control which put very simply means using a variety of technological systems to replace the moving flight control surfaces that we currently use to manage airflow over an aircraft and in turn the direction that it fly eyes instead active flow control relies on using one or more systems to do the same job without any real exposed moving parts now there is more than one approach to skinning the active flow control cat but Crane's approach seems to be routing puffs of air from the aircraft's jet engines through specific nozzles all over its fuselage to alter its trajectory in flight and this concept was explained in depth in the American Institute of Aeronautics and astronautics academic Journal but there are other approaches to the same premise like a concept published in the Journal of Applied Physics that calls for using an array of electrodes on the skin of the aircraft these electrodes would produce an electrical discharge at very specific intervals and locations to quickly heat up the nearby air thus changing its density and how it affects the aircraft passing through it now regardless of how it's ultimately done eliminating control surfaces in an aircraft would be a boon for stealth technology but for hypersonics as well any seam or gap between control surfaces or body panels in a stealth aircraft can produce a radar return thus compromising its stealth profile today's stealth aircraft go to Great Lengths to limit the radar return produced by their moving control surfaces Often by leveraging things like radar absorbent materials even tape sometimes but if you could eliminate those control surfaces entirely it would not only improve stealth it would reduce maintenance requirements and operating costs but the implications for hypersonics could be even more significant maneuvering at Hypersonic speeds is a massive engineering hurdle thanks to the huge amounts of pressure and friction produced by ripping through the atmosphere at Mach 5 plus using control surfaces that can manage this heat and pressure would be a massive challenge but if instead you could use electrodes on the skin or puffs of air not unlike the chemical thrusters used by the space shuttle well that could take a mind-boggling Challenge and just turn it into an incredible one of course active flow control could also be a big deal for non-stealth and non-hypersonic aircraft by dramatically reducing the weight by eliminating all the systems required to manage flight control surfaces that could improve speed range and payload capabilities and depending on the type of system used in place of these flight control surfaces it could mean fewer moving Parts which tends to mean fewer maintenance requirements and that translates to higher Readiness rates and lower overall operating costs renders of the x65 released by DARPA thus far Show 14 active flow control arrays positioned across an unusual co-planar joined wing with twin tails and this aircraft is expected to begin flight tests in 2025. up next we have a platform we've discussed on this channel before 4. the x62 Vista in June of 2021 the U.S Air Force announced that it was redesignating its nf-16d variable in-flight simulator aircraft or Vista as an X-Plane now known as the x62a Vista this heavily modified block 30 f-16d Fighting Falcon is likely one of the most maneuverable fighters on the planet thanks to its multi-access thrust vectoring nozzle that allows its onboard flight computers to orient the outflow of the engine's thrust independent of the aircraft itself but it isn't meant for dogfighting instead the aircraft's unique onboard flight control system leverages those thrust vectoring capabilities to make this aircraft fly like any other jet in service today in other words from inside the cockpit of the x62 it can feel like you're flying anything from a big and sluggish B-52 to a quick and Nimble F-22 Raptor and really and anything in between but what earned the Vista its new X-Plane status wasn't its ability to mimic other aircraft it was its ability to quickly accommodate artificial intelligence in 2021 the Vista simulation system or VSS flight control computer was completely replaced with a new one called system for autonomous control of simulation or sacks put simply this system allows for the rapid installation of algorithm-based AI agents as they're called to not only test artificial intelligence fighter pilots but to let these AI agents fly alongside real human operators in the cockpit now the benefit of this effort is twofold first it's to provide a variety of artificial intelligence systems with real-world flight experience learning directly from genuine fighter pilots and second it's to help the Air Force learn how to develop trust between human pilots and their AI enabled co-pilots and and wingman in February of this year the Air Force announced that its x-62 Vista had not only been flying under AI Control but had successfully completed a series of Air Combat exercises over a two-week span last December perhaps just as importantly the aircraft was able to quickly swap between different AI agents developed by different firms during this testing allowing for more rapid maturation of multiple AI models the broader AI teaming effort of the U.S Air Force is disconcertingly called skyborg and it's continuing to progress thanks to these early successes with the x62 with the Air Force now incorporating similar AI pilot agents into six more f-16s that are equipped with a full Suite of Modern Combat systems ultimately the progress made by the x62 will help lead to AI enabled drone wingmen flying alongside America's forthcoming block 4 F-35 the Air Force's next Generation air dominance and the Navy's fax Fighters respectively not to mention going on to equip just about all aircraft with far more capable AI autopilots up next we have the x61 gremlin which promises to turn America's cargo aircraft into drone packing flying aircraft carriers you see as aircraft have become more broadly capable and in turn expensive the US has seen a consistent reduction in the total number of airframes in service since the end of World War II the U.S went from operating nearly 300 000 aircraft in the 1940s to right around 13 000 today now those huge numbers were in no small part because aircraft themselves were not particularly survivable in contested airspace Fielding planes in high volume allowed Uncle Sam to defeat enemy air defenses through sheer volume simply throwing some many fighters and bombers into a battle space that it would be all but impossible to shoot them all down of course these days losing aircraft would be a much bigger deal and it's with the understanding that losses are inevitable in a near-appear fight the U.S Air Force is now looking to return to overwhelming power through volume using an approach that they call Affordable mass and that is where darpa's x61a Gremlin comes in the x61a is a low-cost airframe designed specifically to mature Technologies associated with the launch and recovery of drones in flight at 13 feet 9 inches long and carrying a wingspan of just 11 feet 5 inches the gremlin is about a third the size of an F-16 and can be deployed from the back of an Airborne C-130 powered by a single Williams f-107 turbofan engine the x61a can sustain speeds of around 460 miles per hour and cover ranges up to about 300 miles before being recovered by the same or another Mothership cargo aircraft in the not too distant future drone swarms deployed by cargo aircraft could help saturate the airspace over a target with some carrying electronic warfare equipment others carrying Munitions and still more offering extended sensor reach for pricier crude and uncrewed stealth platforms also operating in the area while pretty capable these airframes are cheap enough for the Air Force to consider them a treatables in other words losing one in a fight isn't a big deal in a real way programs like the x62 will eventually allow the US to completely overwhelm enemy air defenses without breaking the bank or putting many Pilots at risk blotting out the sun like Persian arrows in October of 2021 DARPA announced the first successful launch and recovery of an x61 gremlin from a C-130 Mothership up next we have the x-59 a quest which is spelled in a way that copy editors hate and this program's all about turning Sonic booms into Sonic thuds you may not be aware of this but it's actually illegal for most aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound over the vast majority of the US thanks to the risk of damage to personal property caused by Sonic booms now this rule may be broken occasionally by Fighters tasked with intercepting Wayward civilian or commercial aircraft but NASA the Air Force in Lockheed Martin are working together to make this rule a thing of the past the x-59's unusual name is a play on NASA's long-standing quest q-u-e-s for quiet supersonic technology SST but to understand what makes The Quest special we need to understand Sonic booms as an aircraft flies forward in the atmosphere it creates pressure waves both ahead and behind it not all that different from the Wake created by a boat these pressure waves travel at the speed of sound so as an aircraft approaches that barrier these pressure waves are compressed in front of the aircraft until they merge into a single shock wave that produces a sonic boom now Sonic booms sound a lot like a Thunderclap to anyone down below and the intensity and width of a sonic boom is dictated by the physical characteristics of the aircraft and how it interacts with the air it's passing through the x-59 quest aims to reduce that boom to a Sonic thud making supersonic flight feasible overpopulated areas if successful the x-59 effort could result in commercial and military aircraft that can regularly exceed the speed of sound over any populated region shortening travel times significantly now the value for this is often discussed in terms of commercial travel and Logistics but the truth is this program could also have some real defense implications the US has been moving away from aircraft that fly high higher and faster for survivability in contested airspace since the F-117 Nighthawk proved the efficacy of stealth back in the 80s but because of recent advances in air defense technology and the far-flung and austere nature of supporting counter-terror operations all over the world there's been a renewed emphasis on speed not only to complicate the air defense Enterprise but to enable the military to overcome what's commonly called The Tyranny of distance supersonic flight overpopulated parts of the world could allow for better support of far removed Special Operations elements more rapid logistical support and an improved ability to execute short fused but high-value missions like taking out a terrorist leader when they're spotted by other intelligence assets put simply speed is back in Vogue and the x-59 could play a big role in helping it flourish with a wingspan of just 29 and a half feet a bit less than an F-16 the long and slender x59 stretches 94 feet from front to back and is powered by a single General Electric f-414 after burning turbofan engine similar to the ones powering today's fa-18 super hornets and that's not the only place this unusual aircraft borrowed components from off the shelf its cockpit ejection seat and canopy all come from the Northrup t-38 and its landing gear comes from the F-16 the x-59 is expected to reach a top speed of Mach 1.5 and maintain a cruising speed of around Mach 1.42 while producing very little Sonic Boom thanks to its elongated but narrow airframe and specially positioned canards designed to prevent shock waves from coalescing in front of the aircraft if all goes according to plan this X-Plane will be able to breach the sound barrier while producing a thud that's only about as loud as closing your car door the x-24 is scheduled to begin test flights over U.S city these to gather data about noise starting next year now it's of course important to remember that not every X-Plane goes on to change the game but even when these programs don't ultimately pan out they still often produce technological breakthroughs that can give us a glimpse of the future of Aviation they can not only show us what today's Cutting Edge technology is capable of but we're the pentagon's priorities are for tomorrow but maybe most importantly for airplane nerds like me and probably like you if you've made it this far into the video they're usually pretty cool to look at too and on that ends yet another edition of air power from sandbox news I'm Alex Hollings make sure to swing by sandboxnews.com today and every day for all the latest in news entertainment and motivation from all around the force if you got anything out of today's video make sure to click like And subscribe down below and leave me a comment so I know what I should cover next and of course don't forget to tap on that Bell icon so you never miss a drop from sandbox news foreign

Channel: Sandboxx

Views: 180,734

Keywords: x-plane, xplane, xplanes, x-planes, x-1, x-15, x-29, x-61, x61, x-61 gremlins, gremlins, x-65 crane, crane, x-65, active flow control, darpa, x-62a, x-62, x62, x-62 VISTA, vista, ai, artificial intelligence, x-59, x59, quesst, supersonic

Id: YaTSZ8O9Tkk

Length: 19min 3sec (1143 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 11 2023