DARPA photo

The DARPA Oblique Flying Wing program is aimed at designing and conducting the first-ever flight tests of a tailless, supersonic, variable sweep oblique flying wing.

An oblique wing aircraft flies much like a swimmer swims: as one wing of the aircraft is swept forward, the other wing is swept back in an asymmetric configuration when flying at supersonic speeds. In conventional aircraft, the two wings are symmetrically swept.

"The oblique flying wing as a theoretical concept has been considered for many years. It is an intriguing planform for supersonic flight due to the excellent wave drag optimization possible, and it has been studied repeatedly for supersonic applications. But no one has yet demonstrated a supersonic oblique flying wing in flight -- DARPA intends to do just that," said Thomas Beutner, program manager for the Oblique Flying Wing program in DARPA's Tactical Technology Office.

Key challenges? Aerodynamics, aeroelasticity, propulsion integration, and controllability.

If successful, the current preliminary design effort by Northrop Grumman, announced in mid-March, may be followed by a second phase that would finalize a detailed design, and build and flight test an X-plane, with first flight expected in the 2010/2011 timeframe, said DARPA.

Aircraft designers have been interested in oblique wing concepts for decades, but to date, all flight demonstrations of oblique wing and oblique flying wing aircraft have been at low speed, and all previous designs have used vertical tails to address some of the controllability challenges of the concept.

DARPA's program will be the first oblique wing to fly at supersonic speeds and the first to fly without a tail.

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