Re: Wet T-Shirt winner!
bluewater19,<br /><br />Good try!<br /><br />The Grumman X-29 Technology Demenstrator, was dirived from a Grumman F-9 Panther fuselage, not an Northrup F-5, that had composite forward swept wings grafted onto it, and was powered by a GE-111A jet engine from a prototype F-16, not the GE tubines used in the F-18.<br /><br />The X-29 is the first 100% Fly-By-Wire aircraft ever produced.<br /><br />All flight controls are controlled by the 4 on-board flight control computers.<br /><br />Essentially, if the computers fail, the pilot only has one option...EJECTION!<br /><br />Only (2) X-29 aircraft were ever built, with #1 in the photo.<br /><br />X-29 #1 was only used in level flight, essentially proving that it would fly, although it had technically already flown during taxi tests in June and July, 1988, at the Naval Weapons Reserve Depot, Calverton, NY, where they were built, before its official first flight at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. on Oct. 22, 1988. <br /><br />X-29 #2 was used for dive tests, inverted flight, and every imaginable test they could throw at it.<br /><br />Niether plane
ever had any in flight mechanical or electrical problems.<br /><br />Niether plane is operational today, although they do remain at Edwards AFB.<br /><br />
<br /><br />This is the last photo of X-29 #1 at Calverton, before being shipped to Edwards AFB.<br /><br />John Denver could only dream that he had a plane like the X-29!
