X-48B Blended Wing Body

Boeing Phantom Works has partnered with NASA and the Air Force Research Laboratory to study the structural, aerodynamic and operational advantages of the Blended Wing Body concept, a cross between a conventional plane and a flying wing design.

The Air Force has designated the prototype the X-48B based on its interest in the design's potential as a multi-role, long-range, high-capacity military transport aircraft. The 8.5 percent scale, remotely piloted X-48B is dynamically scaled to fly much like the full-size aircraft would fly.

Following completion of installation of test instrumentation, one of two X-48B Blended Wing Body technology demonstrators began flight tests at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in early 2007, and those tests are continuing into 2008. Researchers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va., tested the second X-48B prototype aircraft in Langley's historic full-scale wind tunnel in the spring of 2006, and the flight tests are intended in part to validate the results of those wind tunnel tests.