Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first flight of the Grumman X-29A. In the late 70's, DARPA initiated an industry contest to develop an X-plane to be built with a novel forward swept wing (FSW). The Air Force's Norris Krone wrote his Doctoral thesis on using composites to strengthen wings (especially forward swept wings). His analysis made it possible to build a strong and lightweight aircraft. Bidders in this contest included General Dynamics (with a FSW F-16), and Rockwell (Sabrebat). Grumman won the award, and built two prototypes. The first took off at Edwards Air Force base on December 14, 1984. Here is the CBS coverage of that historic event.
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