Northrop Grumman tests oblique flying wing X-plane in windtunnel

Posted on: Sep. 11th, 2007 || Source: Flight Global | E-mail Article | Print Article

Northrop Grumman is beginning high-speed windtunnel testing of the oblique flying wing X-plane it is designing for the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. If built, the OFW technology demonstrator will be the first supersonic, tailless, variable-sweep flying wing.

The high-fidelity model will be tested at speeds up to Mach 1.3 in a tunnel at Calspan in Buffalo, New York as a step toward possible flight tests of the unmanned demonstrator around 2011. Low-speed windtunnel testing was conducted in January, achieving "excellent correlation" with computational fluid dynamics analyses, says programme manager Joe Pawlowski.

FILE PHOTO - Artist Impression of the Oblique Flying Wing

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