| McDonnell Douglas X-36 | ||
|---|---|---|
| ||
| Description | ||
| Role | Research aircraft | |
| Crew | 0 (1 pilot on the ground) | |
| Passengers | 0 | |
| First flight | 17th May 1997 | |
| Entered service | ||
| Manufacturer | McDonnell Douglas/NASA | |
| Produced | 2 | |
| Dimensions | ||
| Length | 5.55 m | |
| Wingspan | 3.15 m | |
| Height | 0.95 m | |
| Wing area | ||
| Weights | ||
| Empty | 495 kg | |
| Loaded | ||
| Maximum takeoff | 575 kg | |
| Powerplant | ||
| Engine | 1 × Williams International F112 | |
| Power (each) | 3.1 kN | |
| Performance | ||
| Maximum speed | 375 km/h | |
| Cruising speed | ||
| Range | ||
| Ceiling | 6,100 m | |
| Rate of climb | ||
The McDonnell Douglas X-36 Tailless Fighter Agility Research Aircraft was a subscale prototype which flies without vertical stabilizators.
History[]
The unmanned aircraft is controlled by canards, thrust vectoring and ailerons. Because of it´s bad static stability, a advanced fly-by-wire system was used.
The X-36 was built as an unmanned 28% scale model prototype and it is controlled from a virtual cockpit by a pilot on the ground, who receives videos from the aircraft.
The first flight of the X-36 was on 17th May 1997, all in all 31 test flights. The handling of the aircraft showed to be very good, it met all the criteria and actually it exceeded them.
Sometimes the aircraft is called Boeing X-36, because McDonnell Douglas merged with Boeing in August 1997 while the test program was in progress.