Tag: X-29

Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut: The USSR’s Strangest Aircraft

23Sep

By Alya KulikovaNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut: The USSR’s Strangest Aircraft

Throughout the Cold War, the concept of swept wings became widespread. However, nearing the end of the Cold War, the USSR developed the Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut to look at the potential of forward-swept wing designs. Sukhoi designed the Berkut to match the US's Grumman X-29 program. The design of both aircraft are eerily similar as well! However, just like the X-29, the Su-47 was a complete failure. But why was this? And what exactly did the USSR, and later the Russian Air Forces' get out of the Berkut program? (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Pre-Berkut Prior to the X-29 and the Berkut, the concept of forward-swept wings was not a new one. Indeed, the earliest designs date back to the late 1800's and early 1900's, with early aviators trying to cr...

Grumman X-29: The World’s Most Unconventional Aircraft Design

18Dec

By Gareth SeagullNo Comments

Aircraft Digest

Grumman X-29: The World’s Most Unconventional Aircraft Design

In recent decades, the concept of swing wings has become widely adopted. However, most of the time, they aren't forward swing wings, like the Grumman X-29! Despite Grumman and the USAF spending millions of dollars developing the jet, much of its technology has since been proven to be useless. So what exactly did the US get out of the program? And why did it fail? As a result of the aircraft's technology and primary objective, the X-29 has arguably the weirdest aircraft design in history! (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Pre-X-29 The concept of forward-swept wings is not a new one. Rough sketches of forward swept aircraft date back to the time of the Wright Brothers! However, these designs proved to be ultimately futile. During WWII, the ...