The flattened-out flier you see here is the X-48C Blended Wing Body, an x-plane in development by NASA and Boeing. NASA snapped this photo yesterday as the unmanned plane took off from Rogers Dry Lake at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., where it completed its first successful test flight.
"Blended Wing Body" refers to the X-48C's somewhat triangular shape. It's an old idea in aeronautics?building an aircraft that gets its lift from the fuselage rather than just the wings. The potential advantage of this design is less drag and therefore better fuel economy than the "tubular" airliner design we're all accustomed to. It'd be quieter, too. So NASA has been experimenting with designs for years to see whether this body style could go into future aircraft.
The previous such NASA-Boeing collaboration was the X-48B (seen below), which flew nearly 100 times between 2007 and 2010. X-48C has a 21-foot wingspan and weighs about 500 pounds, so it's close in specs to its predecessor. However, the C comes with two engines making 89 lbs. of thrust as opposed to the three engines each making 50 lbs. on X-48B.
The current aircraft is just a small-scale model of what Boeing envisions building someday. Aviation Week says the aerospace giant foresees building a military-grade version with a 240-foot wingspan, or more than 10 times as big as X-48C. (By comparison, the similarly-shaped B-2 measures only 172 feet.)
In the short term, NASA plans to conduct flight tests through the fall.
Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/meet-the-new-nasa-boeing-x-48c-11479603?src=rss
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