Aviation / Aerospace

Grumman X-29

Forward-Swept Wing Technology Demonstrator [ 1982 ]

The unique Grumman X-29 design - with its forward-swept wings - was born from the existing airframe of the Northrop F-5A Freedom Fighter series.

Authored By: Staff Writer | Last Edited: 10/26/2018 | Content ©www.MilitaryFactory.com | The following text is exclusive to this site.

Image courtesy of the NASA image gallery.

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The Grumman X-29 aircraft was a technology demonstrator appearing in the latter years of the Cold War (1947-1991). The design was of a most unique shape - made notable by its forward-swept wings - and was the first aircraft with such an arrangement to fly supersonically (the World War 2-era Junkers Ju 287 was the first jet to utilize forward-swept wings but only ever flew subsonically). The X-29 would serve as a flying testbed for seven years with a tenure beginning in 1984, providing much research in advanced wing concepts and moving canards.

Externally, the X-29 was a modified airframe belonging to the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter lightweight aircraft. The X-29 featured light-yet-rigid, composite-based, forward-swept monoplane wings emerging from the rear fuselage sides. The cockpit was situated well-forward in the fuselage with a largely unobstructed view out of the glass canopy for the sole pilot. The aircraft featured its canards at midships aft of the cockpit and ahead of the mainplanes. The empennage included a single vertical tailfin. No horizontal tailplanes were used as the mainplanes were seated far enough back to take their place. A single General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofan was used for propulsion and this outputting at 16,000lbs. All told, the aircraft could reach speeds of Mach 1.5+ and a ceiling of 55,000 feet. Its undercarriage supported components retained by the Northrop F-5 and also taken from a General Dynamics F-16 "Falcon".

The Grumman X-29 was an internally complex design centered around three redundant Fly-By-Wire (FBW) computers backed by three redundant analog computers. Fly-by-wire technology was necessary as the unconventional layout of the airframe proved to be highly unstable inflight without assistance. The redundancy of the systems assured that there would be no catastrophic failure of the subsystems while inflight and the analog arrangement directly backed up the digital suite to provide a further fail safe. The X-29 was a true testbed in every sense of the word, its fly-by-wire technology now commonplace to both military- and civilian-minded aircraft alike.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was the primary operator of the two X-29A demonstrators completed. These carried serial numbers 82-0003 and 82-0049. Their test regime spanned from 1984 through to 1991 before the project was officially ended. The aircraft pairing then went on to prove many aeronautic concepts viable and served to forward American military aviation into the following decade.

The two working examples themselves manage to survive their years of testing with one of the demonstrators ending its career as a showpiece at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Ohio. The other resided at Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards AFB.

The National Air and Space Museum of Washington, D.C. displays a fiberglass scale model of the X-29 in its facility rafters.©MilitaryFactory.com

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Specifications

Service Year

1982

Origin

United States

Status

RETIRED
Not in Service.

Crew

1

Production

2
UNITS

Grumman - USA

(View other Aviaton-Related Manufacturers)

United States

(OPERATORS list includes past, present, and future operators when applicable)

✓ X-Plane (Developmental, Prototype, Technology Demonstrator)
Aircraft developed for the role of prototyping, technology demonstration, or research / data collection.

Length

48.2 ft
(14.70 m)

Width/Span

28.9 ft
(8.80 m)

Height

14.1 ft
(4.30 m)

Empty Wgt

13,801 lb
(6,260 kg)

MTOW

17,791 lb
(8,070 kg)

Wgt Diff

+3,990 lb
(+1,810 kg)

(Showcased structural values pertain to the Grumman X-29A production variant)

Installed: 1 x General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofan engine developing 16,000 lb of thrust.

Max Speed

1,131 mph
(1,820 kph | 983 kts)

Ceiling

55,118 ft
(16,800 m | 10 mi)

Range

1,553 mi
(2,500 km | 4,630 nm)

♦ MACH Regime (Sonic)

Sub

Trans

Super

Hyper

HiHyper

ReEntry

♦

(Showcased performance specifications pertain to the Grumman X-29A production variant. Compare this aircraft entry against any other in our database or View aircraft by powerplant type)

None.

Supported Types

(Not all ordnance types may be represented in the showcase above)

Grumman Model 712 / G-712 - Internal Grumman Company Designation.

X-29A - Base Developmentl Model of which 2 examples were produced and operated.

Cockpit image represents the Grumman X-29A production model.

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