Taking an X-Airplane to the Paris Air Show

摘要

The X-3l Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability (EFM) Program had four goals when theprogram was initiated in the late 1980's: (1) Rapid demonstration of high agility maneuvering concepts. (2) Investigation of tactical benefits of EFM technologies. (3) Development of design requirements and to provide a database for future airplane applications. (4) Validation of an international low cost prototyping program. Two X-3l demonstrator airplanes began flight test at Rockwell's Palmdale Test Center in 1990. The airplanes employed multi-axis thrust vectoring as the enabling technology for Enhanced Fighter maneuverability. After completing initial post-stall envelope clearance flights at palmdale, the two airplanes and the X-31 program were moved to the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center in early 1992 to complete envelope expansion and to conduct close-in-air combat testing.