![]() Eventually issues with the Rockwell HiMAT advanced UAV led to a crewed X-plane with forward sweep, the Grumman X-29, which flew in 1984. A series of experimental hypersonic projects, including an advanced version of the Martin Marietta X-24 lifting body, were turned down. New X-planes appeared fairly regularly for many years until the flow temporarily stopped in the early 1970s. X-planes have since accomplished many aviation "firsts" including breaking speed and altitude barriers, varying wing sweep in flight, implementing exotic alloys and propulsion innovations, and many more. ![]() The majority of X-plane testing has since taken place there. The first experimental aircraft specification, for a transonic rocket plane, was placed in 1945, and the first operational flight of an X-plane took place when the Bell X-1 made its first powered flight nearly three years later at Muroc Air Force Base, California, now known as Edwards Air Force Base. ![]() Other organizations such as the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the US Marine Corps (USMC) have also since sponsored X-plane projects. ![]() NACA later became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the USAAF became the United States Air Force (USAF). The X-planes concept officially came into being in 1944, as a joint programme between the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), the US Navy (USN) and the US Army Air Force (USAAF), in order to pursue research into high-speed aircraft. ![]()
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