[ Beep and music ]
>> NASA, one-seven, can you [inaudible], please?
>> The scene is an arid lake bed
of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center near the Mojave Desert
in California.
It's early morning.
Engineers and technicians have been here since before sun-up.
Check-out and preparations
for the upcoming flight test are painstaking and deliberate.
This is not an ordinary plane.
It has a scissor-like design that could prove
to be the shape of aircraft to come.
Studies indicate that if the design features
of the oblique wing, as this 25-foot model is called,
were applied to full-sized jets, it would allow them
to travel faster than sound
without leaving the usual sonic boom in their wake
and give them increased fuel economy.
Before the oblique-wing plane takes off,
a television-equipped aircraft sweeps over
and scans the flight path.
[ Plane engine and radio transmission ]
What the camera sees will aid this man,
the pilot of the oblique-wing model.
He actually flies the plane from inside this van.
Another television camera mounted in the nose
of the test aircraft lets him see where the plane's going.
Watch now as the ground crew start the engine
and launch the oblique-wing plane.
[ Plane engine ]
During the flight, researchers carefully record how the
aircraft responds to a variety of maneuvers.
They compare these responses with wind tunnel predictions
to better understand what the aircraft is doing
and why it's doing it.
[ Plane engine ]
>> As you can see, the wing on the aircraft is at an angle
to the fuselage such that the left-wing points forward
of the aircraft.
A normal airplane, the wings are
at a right angle from the fuselage.
On this aircraft, the wing is at an oblique angle
such that the left-wing points forward
and the right-wing points aft,
and this feature allows the aircraft
to have much lower transatlantic drag
than a conventional aircraft,
and for a transatlantic airplane designed to use this wing,
you would fly it at 100 to 200 miles an hour with the wing
at zero degrees of yaw.
As the speed increases, the wing yaw is increased.
>> Research has shown that oblique-winged aircraft compared
to fixed-wing planes use less fuel
and can reduce sonic boom levels.
The plane's designer R.T. Jones says
that using the oblique wing takes maximum advantage
of wing sweep in a way that fools the wind
by making it think you're going slower than you actually are.
The next phase of research could include a 1,500-pound plane
with a 30-foot wingspan powered by jet engines.
It would have a pilot on board.
These artists' concepts show how the oblique wing design might be
applied to transport-type aircraft.
The wing, of course, would swing back
to a more conventional position for landing.
The oblique wing, a unique design
that may one day allow planes to fly faster,
quieter, and use less fuel.
[ Truck engine ]
[ Music ]