Foward Into the Future

The Air Force awarded Grumman a contract to construct two prototypes. Grumman assigned design number 712 to this new configuration, and began the detailed design work. It was conjectural whether this FSW would ever go into production. Just in case, though, Grumman designed hard points into the wing in order to hang various stores. Here is a concept drawing from 1979.



Both Rockwell and Grumman ran competitive advertisements in Aviation Week and Flight International. At this point in time, preliminary design was in an advanced stage.



The X-29A appeared at the Paris Air Show in 1985 as a static display. This ad appeared in Flight International.

Grumman X-29A - 25th Anniversary

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.

As seen twenty years ago....The Lunar Module Eagle

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of Apollo 11, Grumman Aerospace Corporation created a short video entitled "The Lunar Module Eagle". This film, produced in cooperation with the National Air and Space Museum, was first broadcast on a local Long Island, NY cable channel (Cablevision). The film eventually became part of the lunar module exhibit located in gallery 112 (National Mall Museum) and has played endlessly for many years.

Highlights include a few animated sequences which appeared during the ABC coverage of the moon landing.

Here is the film in it's entirety. There are a few spots of analog interference.