The X-plane for DARPA’s Series Hybrid Electric Propulsion AiRcraft Demonstration (Shepard) program has received its official designation, the XRQ-73. Northrop Grumman’s Aeronautics Systems division in Redondo Beach, CA, is the program’s prime contractor. The aircraft concept specialists at the Burt Rutan-founded Scaled Composites are a major supplier. Shepard is an X-prime program that hopes to […]
Tag: Xplane
DARPA’s Naval VTOL X-Plane Drone Program Narrows Down To Two Designs
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has chosen designs for the next phase of its AdvaNced airCraft Infrastructure-Less Launch And RecoverY (ANCILLARY) program, to demonstrate an autonomous vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) X-plane. The effort aims to develop and flight test a drone that will offer long endurance and the ability to launch and […]
Aurora moves into next design phase for DARPA vertical takeoff X-plane
Aurora Flight Sciences has finished its conceptual design of an experimental vertical-takeoff-and-landing plane for the Pentagon and is moving into the next phase. Aurora’s blended-wing design for the SPRINT, or Speed and Runway Independent Technologies, program will now start the preliminary design process, the company said Monday. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency wants its […]
Boeing Company’s X-Plane Could Change Aviation as We Know It
When Wilbur and Orville Wright successfully flew the first controllable aircraft in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the 12-second flight was achieved using wing warping, a system of movable, external control surfaces that nearly every aircraft has used for flight control since. The CRANE project from DARPA and Aurora Flight Sciences could change everything we know […]
DARPA wants high-speed vertical takeoff X-plane
WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is working with four companies to design an experimental vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft that can fly at speeds far faster than the V-22 Osprey. The collaboration comes as the U.S. military considers how it might operate aircraft in areas that lack traditional runways. DARPA calls its program SPRINT, for […]