Blended wing body research aircraft flies for the first time

The modified X-48C blended wing body (BWB) research aircraft flew for the first time on 7 August from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Designed by Boeing and built by Cranfield Aerospace in the UK, the unmanned X-48C aircraft took off at 07:56 PDT and climbed to an altitude of 5,500ft (1,676m) before landing nine minutes later.

According to Boeing, the X-48C is a scale model of a heavy-lift subsonic vehicle that forgoes conventional tube-and-wing aircraft design in favour of a triangular aircraft that blends the vehicle’s wing and body.

Boeing and NASA believe the BWB concept offers the potential over the long term of significantly greater fuel efficiency, consuming at least 20 per cent less fuel compared with conventional subsonic aircraft. The design of the BWB means also that it is 50dB less noisy on approaching an airport.

‘Working with NASA, we are very pleased to enter into the next flight-test phase of our work to explore and validate the aerodynamic characteristics and efficiencies of the BWB concept,’ said Bob Liebeck, a Boeing senior technical fellow and the company’s BWB programme manager.