The Grumman X-29A takes off from Edwards AFB, California, on its first flight on 14th December 1984 piloted by Chuck Sewell
The Grumman X-29A, serial 20003, comes in to land. Main landing gear is from an F-16A and the nosewheel from an F-5A
Under view of the X-29A showing its wing planform and distinctive body strakes
One-sixth scale model of the Grumman X-29A being "flown" in the NASA wind-tunnel at Langley during early tests to study low-speed stability and control characteristics.
Airflow over an aft-swept wing (right) moves towards the tips, increasing the load outboard; this causes the tips to stall prematurely. Airflow over a forward-swept wing (left) flows inboard, delaying the stall at the wing tips; this improves control at low speeds
First aircraft to exceed Mach 1 in level flight, the rocket-powered Bell X-1 achieved this with unswept wings, on 14th October 1947. However, a model of the X-1 with forward-swept wings was tunnel-tested by NASA at Langley The later X-1A attained Mach 2.5
An earlier shot of the Junkers Ju 287-V1 at Brandis. To preserve the structural integrity of the wing lower skin it had fixed main landing gear (taken from a Ju 352). The spats on the nosewheels (from a B-24) were removed after taxi-ing trials
Blohm und Voss P 209.02 project for a forward-swept-wing single-seat jet fighter under development in 1945
The Hamburger Flugzeugbau HFB 320 Hansa Jet, which first flew on 21st April 1964. Note the inboard wing slats, and the fairings for the main landing gear which retracts forwards to eliminate the need for a cut out in the highly stressed lower wing surface Forward wing sweep on a business jet has been revived on the Williams International project powered by two 1.500-lb. s.t. Williams FJ44 fanjet engines
