In January 2023, NASA handed out an award covering its "Sustainable Flight Demonstrator" program to longtime aero-company Boeing. The program seeks to flesh out the qualities required for a new generation of single-aisle regional passenger airliners. Key to the program's maturation is the development of the "Transonic Truss-Braced Wing" (TTBW), an advanced wing mainplane concept which looks to revolutionize commercial flight in the United States. The partnership between the agency and the company means shared resources in the design, development, and construction of the full-scale "X-66A" flyable technology demonstrator to come.
In March of 2023, a computer-generated simulation encompassing a "virtual wind tunnel" and the intended TTBW arrangement were revealed. Then followed the formal designation of X-66A in June of that year - the aircraft set to become the first such airframe to be focused on America's Net-Zero greenhouse gas goals as it pertains to aviation.
The framework of the program will be built atop an existing McDonnell Douglas MD-90 passenger airliner. The key change will be replacement of its low-mounted, swept-back monoplanes with the long and thin TTBW members, each braced through elegantly-shaped thick struts against the fuselage. Many of the original physical characteristics of the MD-90 are expected to remain including the single-rudder tail unit, tricycle landing gear, and over-nose cockpit with side-by-side seating for two. Unlike the MD-90s original arrangement, the X-66A will feature its new mainplanes more forward with each carrying an underslung non-afterburning turbofan engine for the required propulsion - shifting the center mass concentration of the aircraft.
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Monoplane
Design utilizes a single primary wing mainplane; this represents the most popular modern mainplane arrangement.
Shoulder-Mounted
Mainplanes are mounted at the upper section of the fuselage, generally at the imaginary line intersecting the pilot's shoulders.
Swept-Back
The planform features wing sweep back along the leading edges of the mainplane, promoting higher operating speeds.
2 x IAE V2525-D5 non-afterburning turbofan engines developing 25,000lb of thrust each. Propulsion
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