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Nice video about X-29 fighting jet with unique and amazing designs also clearly explaining of its superiority characters and abilities thanks for sharing...yes its best aircraft
There are rumors/siting at Groom & Tonopah of the Switchblade. Supposedly it’s wings are variable in 3 ways. One position is forward swept, for super maneuvers, one for loitering, and a forward sweep into the fuselage for Mach runs. Think of it as a F-111 replacement, but can dogfight too.
It had an entire game named after it - F-29 Retaliator which I had for the Amiga. That also featured the F-22 and a bunch of state of the art weapons like the ASALM (which never made it past the prototype stage) and was a brilliantly fun game for its time. Graphics were really good for its day but look terrible 33 years later.
Back in the late 1980's, I had a flight simulator for my PCXT clone computer (It ran at 4.77 MHZ, and/or 8MHZ in TURBO MODE!? (Impressive, huh? No💩!)) And someone gave me a copy of CHUCK YEAGERS ADVANCED FLIGHT TRAINER, which included military aircraft from WW1 to WW2 to the Korean War, the Vietnam war, Desert Storm, and experimental/spy planes. During one flight in the SR-71 I got that plane to fly a little bit faster than what the "official" speed record for the SR-71 was! Anyways, the A.F.T also included the X-29 which was an absolute blast to fly, and it quickly became my favorite plane to fly! It also had the X15 Flying Rocket, in which I was able too fly so high that the "sky" was BLACK, with stars being the only light outside of the plane!
No1 is the SR 71 and number 2 the X 29 and also love the SU 47. These are just beautiful planes, there is just something about the fwd swept wing, it just so beautiful.
Thank you SO much much this video! I have had an unhealthy fixation on the X-29 since I first saw one on static display at an air show in the early 1990’s. It looked like it was going fast, even when it was just sitting there. The only other airplane that has left that same impression on me is the YF-23 that’s parked at Wright Patterson. Add another superb video to your playlist. You knocked it out of the park with this one!!!
I love the rendered model of production version. However fighters are more tactical bomber now. More likely it wouldve carried GBU-10 and lazer designator with sidewinder and sparrows
The X-29 as a combat platform was killed by the success of Lockheed's skunk works development of 'Stealth Technologies'. The size & shape of the canards necessary to maintain control of the airframe kills any chance of passive radar evasion, leaving only active radar jamming as a means of self defense.
Wouldn't a built-in jammer eat up precious spaces in the aircraft and add extra weight? The Prowlers and Growlers use their own hardpoints to carry the jammers.
@@Joshua_N-A Precisely. Passive stealth is what is the hot thing right now in the technology race. The X-29 is/was an absolute beast of a test bed platform, but the information developed has limited application to the "New" paradigm of current designs. When passive stealth gets cracked & reduced in effectiveness the work done by the X-29 will probably greatly increase in relevance, or all that data could be surpassed by something that none of us "Plebs" have seen yet.
always loved the looks of the X-29. in flightsimulator 4.0, there was an option to "create" ones own F-20. playing with the configuration and moving the center of gravity to the rear, the design switched to the one of the X29, actually giving the "model" a higher fidelity.. loved to "fly around" with that. and missed it in FS5 and up (until more realistic models were created for FS98 and 2000)
Poor Northrop. Great planes. Stuck on the sidelines. There was an Area 88 model in the 1/144 scale variant of the X-29 reimagined with 4 Sparrows and Shin Kazama’s fiery unicorn tail art. And as mentioned above by another viewer, the GI Joe and Python Patrol versions of the X-30 Conquest.
Amazing design and great X-plane. Always loved seeing this in books as a kid, but I agree that it was too much of a risk to make a production run of it. If the stresses on the surfaces were as serious as they said, there's no telling what might happen if those surfaces or the airframe itself took any damage.
I'm pretty sure that that is showing the Bugatti replica that somebody built a few years ago but unfortunately it crashed on its 2nd flight and the pilot was killed
4:55 The HIMAT did NOT use a FSW. As can be seen in the video, its main wings and canards were conventionally, rear swept delta wings. 🙃 9:36 My understanding is that the two X-29s did more like 400 total flights before retirement. I think airframe 1 did about 220 general aviation missions; then airframe 2 did 120 focusing on military maneuvers, then 60 more with smoke vortex studies. Those composite wings really took a beating! 10:44 While competing for the DARPA 1977 FSW project, one of Grumman's artists painted a 1979 pic of a couple of X-29 type planes as fighters. They were black or dark gray on top, and light gray below, with US military roundels. And the nose was definitely longer, ala an F-5 or F-20, just like your Retaliator concept. But there were no visible weapons stores. Then when the USAF requested proposals for its Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in 1981, Grumman suggested an ATF version of the X-29 with dual 2D vectored thrust nozzles for even wilder maneuverability. My understanding is that this derivative design was known as ATF Concept #9. But as you said, stealth eventually became a major criterion for the ATF, and the Grumman FSW design lost out. FSWs have fallen out of favor, but vectored thrust has stuck around.
I think it might be neat to see this kind of configuration on a drone. More compact body should make the torsion on the stress of the wings would be less of a problem. Also the supermaneuvrability can be better utilized by a drone. We could have it so that our stealth aircraft like the f-22 or f-35 may not be able to outmaneuver in a dogfight against newer aircraft that have been able to defeat their stealth advantage, but have them accompanied by ridiculously maneuverable drones with all sorts of advantages. I suppose the Valkyrie drone is that drone but it doesn't have canards, forward swept wings, thrust vectoring, or aft strakes. Probably doesn't need all that but still, would be neat to see American aircraft with these technologies.
And yet the Airforce never freakin made a fighter with swept wings...i think the F-29 would have been bigger and i think the navy might have taken interest.
Sexy as fuck. F-14, Sr71, f-104 and X-29 are far the sexiest planes of the usa in my opinion. And now? Raptors, hornets and the new xf35s are everywhere. This is somehow like in the music industry, always the older is the better.. :)
Pro tip: stop doing the measurements of length, height and weight at start of videos. It’s too repetitive and it’s just too basic of info to waste that much time on at the start of the video where you want to grab viewer attention. Otherwise, great content I really enjoy the channel.
"MOST EVER" should have known from the name . Gotta CALL BS on this one . This plane is fly by wire , the F-117 could not fly at all without a computer to manage the imbalances I.E. could NOT be flown by a human , pilot must be a computer .
@@PilotPhotog Figured to see a response somewhere using the fighter/bomber part instead of jet part and not comment on the flyable in 1900 as opposed to only flyable after the real pilot is charged up . To me it seems addressing that point would be required to reach the MOST in HISTORY part . To be honest , the most unstable fighter in history never got off the drawing board , what you mean is ... to actually fly ? It is the "in history" part I am objecting to , not this video so much since it appears solid information-wise and I DO like that aircraft .
@@I_am_Diogenes thanks for the follow up response, what I mean is for a single type, as mentioned in the video the F-18 has an instability factor of 5% and most 4th gen fighters are somewhere in the range, by contrast the X-29 had an instability factor of 35% so 7 times greater. No other fighter has approached this value so the X-29 is king in this area.
@@PilotPhotog What does instability factor mean? How does the F-18 get 5% instability? And what would be the F-16 or F-15 instability factor? I looked on the net for some kind of definition and didn't find anything good. I wonder what the Su-57 instability would be. Or even the X-36 with it's thrust vectoring and canards.
Who called this testbed a fighter? How many " fights" was it in? It was never, ever anything but an experiment tool. Get a better grip on nomenclature to avoid clickbait comments.
Thanks for commenting, both the US Air Force and NASA wanted to study the FSW for fighter aircraft, which is why the X-29 was made. I research these topics extensively, here is one of my sources, from NASA: www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-008-DFRC.html The X-29 was made specifically to be a single seat fighter for this kind of testing. Enjoy!
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Pictures do not do this plane justice, it is so beautiful in person. I was taken a back by how small it seemed. Another great video.
Thank you and I am looking forward to seeing it at the National museum of the Air Force!
@@PilotPhotog I will be there myself in late august, it will be my second time, I want to see the XB70 again.
@@benwelch4076 I plan on making an XB70 video, what an amazing aircraft, enjoy your visit!
I already loved the F-5 and F-20, seeing it in such a unique configuration is amazing. Wish it got more attention in video games as much as the Su-47.
These videos are some of the best content on aviation on RUclips keep up the good work
Thanks, will do!
Don't worry Sam, just bolt the wings on backwards. If anyone notices we'll just say we ment to do it like that.
Prototypes are always so interesting
They are art itself.
"He's Just Built Differently" Said a NASA Engineer
maybe it was dark skies?
@@aceslayer2237 maybe
yea it was, he beat em to it lol
but this is a great video
love flying this plane in the Ace Combat series
News System
X-29 and the Su-47, the weirdest forward swept aircraft I’ve ever seen
Looks cool tho
The "F-29" Should be carrying as little weight on the wings as possible. Tip loading makes divergence easier
A fair point I just had some fun putting 4 AIM-120s under the wings. Thanks for commenting!
Every postwar jet: Haha wingtip tanks go brrrrr
Yay this is one of my favorites
Nice video about X-29 fighting jet with unique and amazing designs also clearly explaining of its superiority characters and abilities thanks for sharing...yes its best aircraft
Thank you so much Andreas!
@@PilotPhotog welcome friend with respect and pleasure
There are rumors/siting at Groom & Tonopah of the Switchblade. Supposedly it’s wings are variable in 3 ways. One position is forward swept, for super maneuvers, one for loitering, and a forward sweep into the fuselage for Mach runs. Think of it as a F-111 replacement, but can dogfight too.
Just visited the AF museum in WP AFB, saw X29 and still awed.
Searching.... and here it is. Tanks!
Without a shadow of a doubt, it is the most recognizable of the x planes. It's intriguing why it never got to combat.
Another excellent video.
Finally a plane with one of my core attributes
Extreme instability
as we would say in Miami, coolisimo
Representing the 305 😎
yes indeed, Coolisimo!!
The only game I know that this is in is Ace Combat 5. Its one of my top 5 favorite planes in game
it was also in MS Flightsimulator 4.0, when playing around with the settings of the F-20
Also Ace Combat Zero and Ace Combat 2!
It had an entire game named after it - F-29 Retaliator which I had for the Amiga. That also featured the F-22 and a bunch of state of the art weapons like the ASALM (which never made it past the prototype stage) and was a brilliantly fun game for its time. Graphics were really good for its day but look terrible 33 years later.
All I see here is a really nice computer with wings.
Such a beautiful aircraft.
Indeed! A flying computer with wings. Thanks for commenting!
Love your vids..- instant follower here.
Ok, Retaliator is a really great name for the F-29, has a great ring to it.
Are there any data of how maneuverable the X29 had over the conventional design?
Not that I could easily find but there likely is, thanks for commenting and if I do come across some tangible data I will make an update video.
Retaliator? Everyone knows the combat version was called the Conquest!
f-5/f-20 is the most underrated a/c ever!
Its lineage continued in the Super Hornet.
Back in the late 1980's, I had a flight simulator for my PCXT clone computer (It ran at 4.77 MHZ, and/or 8MHZ in TURBO MODE!? (Impressive, huh? No💩!)) And someone gave me a copy of CHUCK YEAGERS ADVANCED FLIGHT TRAINER, which included military aircraft from WW1 to WW2 to the Korean War, the Vietnam war, Desert Storm, and experimental/spy planes. During one flight in the SR-71 I got that plane to fly a little bit faster than what the "official" speed record for the SR-71 was! Anyways, the A.F.T also included the X-29 which was an absolute blast to fly, and it quickly became my favorite plane to fly! It also had the X15 Flying Rocket, in which I was able too fly so high that the "sky" was BLACK, with stars being the only light outside of the plane!
No1 is the SR 71 and number 2 the X 29 and also love the SU 47. These are just beautiful planes, there is just something about the fwd swept wing, it just so beautiful.
Another great video! Great graphics as well! Did you come up with the name Retaliator for a potential production model?
Thank you! The F-29 Retaliator was a throwback to a game I used to play: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F29_Retaliator
@@PilotPhotog Just shows how much i know about games. Anyway, thanks for the reply.
Excellent aviation video about F-29 fighter 👏 👌...yes its excellent designer's
Thank you SO much much this video! I have had an unhealthy fixation on the X-29 since I first saw one on static display at an air show in the early 1990’s. It looked like it was going fast, even when it was just sitting there. The only other airplane that has left that same impression on me is the YF-23 that’s parked at Wright Patterson.
Add another superb video to your playlist. You knocked it out of the park with this one!!!
I love the rendered model of production version. However fighters are more tactical bomber now. More likely it wouldve carried GBU-10 and lazer designator with sidewinder and sparrows
Fair points and I may revisit this aircraft in an upcoming video - thanks for commenting!
VisionAire Vantage was another fwd-swept wing that flew successfully. Unfortunately, never went into production.
Did not know that, thanks for commenting!
The X-29 as a combat platform was killed by the success of Lockheed's skunk works development of 'Stealth Technologies'. The size & shape of the canards necessary to maintain control of the airframe kills any chance of passive radar evasion, leaving only active radar jamming as a means of self defense.
Wouldn't a built-in jammer eat up precious spaces in the aircraft and add extra weight? The Prowlers and Growlers use their own hardpoints to carry the jammers.
@@Joshua_N-A Precisely. Passive stealth is what is the hot thing right now in the technology race. The X-29 is/was an absolute beast of a test bed platform, but the information developed has limited application to the "New" paradigm of current designs. When passive stealth gets cracked & reduced in effectiveness the work done by the X-29 will probably greatly increase in relevance, or all that data could be surpassed by something that none of us "Plebs" have seen yet.
F-16 engineers: *flipped wings goes brrrr*
always loved the looks of the X-29.
in flightsimulator 4.0, there was an option to "create" ones own F-20. playing with the configuration and moving the center of gravity to the rear, the design switched to the one of the X29, actually giving the "model" a higher fidelity.. loved to "fly around" with that. and missed it in FS5 and up (until more realistic models were created for FS98 and 2000)
GI Joe X-30. If you know, you know.
I really wanted to slide an X-30 reference in there somewhere. Thanks for this comment!
I can’t imagine of they made one with thrust vectoring that could handle the stress
Scrapped because whoever was in charge valued stealth over super maneuverability.
Plane looks fast going forward...or in reverse! 😁
Poor Northrop. Great planes. Stuck on the sidelines.
There was an Area 88 model in the 1/144 scale variant of the X-29 reimagined with 4 Sparrows and Shin Kazama’s fiery unicorn tail art. And as mentioned above by another viewer, the GI Joe and Python Patrol versions of the X-30 Conquest.
Amazing design and great X-plane. Always loved seeing this in books as a kid, but I agree that it was too much of a risk to make a production run of it. If the stresses on the surfaces were as serious as they said, there's no telling what might happen if those surfaces or the airframe itself took any damage.
So did Grumman pull a paper clip on Belkan engineers?
I wonder if it would be popular if we could see it at an air show
Someone should model this plane in DCS so we can get an idea of what it would have been like as a fighter.
Ridiculous departure from norm. Grumman made my first house purchase available back in 86 😆
I'm pretty sure that that is showing the Bugatti replica that somebody built a few years ago but unfortunately it crashed on its 2nd flight and the pilot was killed
4:55 The HIMAT did NOT use a FSW. As can be seen in the video, its main wings and canards were conventionally, rear swept delta wings. 🙃
9:36 My understanding is that the two X-29s did more like 400 total flights before retirement. I think airframe 1 did about 220 general aviation missions; then airframe 2 did 120 focusing on military maneuvers, then 60 more with smoke vortex studies. Those composite wings really took a beating!
10:44 While competing for the DARPA 1977 FSW project, one of Grumman's artists painted a 1979 pic of a couple of X-29 type planes as fighters. They were black or dark gray on top, and light gray below, with US military roundels. And the nose was definitely longer, ala an F-5 or F-20, just like your Retaliator concept. But there were no visible weapons stores.
Then when the USAF requested proposals for its Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) program in 1981, Grumman suggested an ATF version of the X-29 with dual 2D vectored thrust nozzles for even wilder maneuverability. My understanding is that this derivative design was known as ATF Concept #9.
But as you said, stealth eventually became a major criterion for the ATF, and the Grumman FSW design lost out. FSWs have fallen out of favor, but vectored thrust has stuck around.
Thats the Arrow
I think it might be neat to see this kind of configuration on a drone. More compact body should make the torsion on the stress of the wings would be less of a problem. Also the supermaneuvrability can be better utilized by a drone. We could have it so that our stealth aircraft like the f-22 or f-35 may not be able to outmaneuver in a dogfight against newer aircraft that have been able to defeat their stealth advantage, but have them accompanied by ridiculously maneuverable drones with all sorts of advantages.
I suppose the Valkyrie drone is that drone but it doesn't have canards, forward swept wings, thrust vectoring, or aft strakes. Probably doesn't need all that but still, would be neat to see American aircraft with these technologies.
Love this plane. (I call it the F-5WTF) :)
Apparently it makes an assload of corrections a second. If the computer failed, that's it. It's falling out the sky.
Yes top in Mon direct
I've flew X29 in AceCombat X
12:31مقاتلة 004/080
at least in fiction we have YF-19
This was even in Ace combat 2.
Was the pilot unstable too?
😍
نعم آلاف 16
LOVE FROM PAKISTAN MAKE SOME DETAILED VIDEO ON F 15 EX EAGLE THANKS
سلام من به تازگی ویدیوهاتون رو میبینم
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I made a model rocket out of this once. I launched it once and lost it.
Sorry to hear that, did it fly well before you lost it?
No lol
@@robfields6655 ah too bad, sorry to hear that
It was still fun. Great memory.
Imagine the unholy marriage of this plane and the X-53 AAW (hint hint)
And yet the Airforce never freakin made a fighter with swept wings...i think the F-29 would have been bigger and i think the navy might have taken interest.
Sexy as fuck. F-14, Sr71, f-104 and X-29 are far the sexiest planes of the usa in my opinion. And now? Raptors, hornets and the new xf35s are everywhere. This is somehow like in the music industry, always the older is the better.. :)
Pro tip: stop doing the measurements of length, height and weight at start of videos. It’s too repetitive and it’s just too basic of info to waste that much time on at the start of the video where you want to grab viewer attention.
Otherwise, great content I really enjoy the channel.
Compro 20.000 unidades para a força aéria brasileira
This sounds dumb but it looks ugly af but the design is beautiful.
Koppya av su47 Russia...
"MOST EVER" should have known from the name . Gotta CALL BS on this one . This plane is fly by wire , the F-117 could not fly at all without a computer to manage the imbalances I.E. could NOT be flown by a human , pilot must be a computer .
35% unstable is still the highest for any fighter aircraft - thanks for commenting!
@@PilotPhotog Figured to see a response somewhere using the fighter/bomber part instead of jet part and not comment on the flyable in 1900 as opposed to only flyable after the real pilot is charged up .
To me it seems addressing that point would be required to reach the MOST in HISTORY part . To be honest , the most unstable fighter in history never got off the drawing board , what you mean is ... to actually fly ? It is the "in history" part I am objecting to , not this video so much since it appears solid information-wise and I DO like that aircraft .
@@I_am_Diogenes thanks for the follow up response, what I mean is for a single type, as mentioned in the video the F-18 has an instability factor of 5% and most 4th gen fighters are somewhere in the range, by contrast the X-29 had an instability factor of 35% so 7 times greater. No other fighter has approached this value so the X-29 is king in this area.
@@PilotPhotog What does instability factor mean? How does the F-18 get 5% instability? And what would be the F-16 or F-15 instability factor? I looked on the net for some kind of definition and didn't find anything good. I wonder what the Su-57 instability would be. Or even the X-36 with it's thrust vectoring and canards.
Who called this testbed a fighter? How many " fights" was it in? It was never, ever anything but an experiment tool. Get a better grip on nomenclature to avoid clickbait comments.
Thanks for commenting, both the US Air Force and NASA wanted to study the FSW for fighter aircraft, which is why the X-29 was made. I research these topics extensively, here is one of my sources, from NASA: www.nasa.gov/centers/armstrong/news/FactSheets/FS-008-DFRC.html
The X-29 was made specifically to be a single seat fighter for this kind of testing. Enjoy!
Bruh relax
17seconds and my comment deleted.
👎👎👎
Thanks for the comment and the feedback!
I think forward swept wings is a poor design and would be a huge waste of money
"Lets take a look"❤