Operational History
The first X-29 was taken aloft on 14 December 1984 from Edwards AFB with Grumman's Chief Test Pilot Chuck Sewell at the controls. With that flight, the X-29 became the second jet-powered aircraft to fly with forward swept wings (with the Nazi Germany-era Junkers Ju 287, which first flew in 1944, being the first). On 13 December 1985, one of the X-29s became the first forward swept wing aircraft to fly in supersonic, level flight. The X-29 began a NASA test program only four months after its first flight. The X-29 proved very reliable, and by August 1986 was involved in flying research missions lasting more than three hours. The first X-29 was not equipped with a spin recovery parachute, as it was not expected to go into a spin. The second X-29 was given such a parachute and was involved in a high angle-of-attack research program. The NASA test program continued from 1984 to 1991. By the time the first X-29 was retired in 1986, it had been flown 242 times.
Read more about this topic: Grumman X-29
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“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)