NASA’s X-66 aircraft, the centerpiece of its Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project, is taking the term “sustainable” to heart by reusing an old MD-90 cockpit as a base for its new X-66 simulator.
When airplanes are retired, they often wind up in “boneyards”—storage fields where they spend years being picked over for parts by manufacturers, researchers, engineers, and designers. That’s where the X-66 team found their new X-66 simulator cockpit, before sending it to NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California.
The project will also sort, brush, and take apart MD-90 cockpit for usage on the simulator part of this project. This is where the Simulation Engineering Branch at NASA Armstrong steps in. The team creates realistic studying models that help pilots and engineers practice serious circumstances in an experimental manner.
Like any other X-plane, a simulator entails that researchers can experiment with uncertainties without adversely affecting the pilot’s life or the setup of the jet. A simulator also gives the team the opportunities to solve design issues during the construction of the aircraft so that when it is constructed it would have exhibited the best performance that is expected.
For construction of X-66, the project team will acquire other MD 90 aircraft and shed it into parts; new engines will be incorporated and wing assemblies of the truss braced wing design will be incorporated.
The cockpit of an old MD-90 aircraft arrived at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, in March 2024. Parts will be used to build a simulator for NASA’s X-66, the demonstration aircraft for the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project. Credit: NASA/Steve Freeman
Sustainable Flight Demonstrator is an ongoing series of projects by NASA concentrating specifically on evolution of airframes as the nation in transition towards sustainable aviation. Apart from X-66 possessing a novel wing design, industry, academia and other government organisations’ involvement will be instrumental in the project team in the identification, selection and maturation of sustainable airframe technologies.
The project aims at disclosing progressive waves of single aisle airliner that serves as the backbone aircraft for many aviation fleets. It is elaborating here that Boeing and NASA are working together in creation of experimental demonstrator aircraft.
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