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>>Flashing across California desert skies, the airplanes you see

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here are writing new chapters in the story
of man made flight....there she goes!

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>>This is my first opportunity
to greet you as deputy administrator

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of the National Aeronautics
and Space Administration.

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>>Together, you and I must make our new agency

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>>A most unusual place

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>>An organization that can challenge
conventional wisdom.

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>>We can engineer anything we can write the requirements for.

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>>We're going to make your idea work.

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This particular idea is quite disruptive.

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>>A typical flight, of course, starts
under the wing of the B-52 mothership.

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>>This sleek, high speed machine
would have made Rube Goldberg proud.

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>>The manner in which we fly
reentry from space,

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on the space shuttle was
pioneered on the X-15.

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>>The X-31 pretty much wrote the book on thurst vectoring, along with its sister program, the F-18 HARV.

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>>An observation of an occulation is

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one of the more challenging
missions that SOFIA can do.

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[Music/Background sound]

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>>Right now, we are looking
at the dawn of a new era of aviation.

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[Music/Background sound]

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[Music/Radio Chatter]

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>>...this is gonna be a wild one!

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[Jets flying/Radio Chatter]

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>>Our pilots are constantly faced

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in flying into North Vietnam with missile
 firings...

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>>...we've got MiGs right under us!

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[Radio Chatter/Explosion]

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>>For a long time.,
 speed was the military aircraft designers'

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main objective, but in a dogfight,
 maneuverability is as important as speed.

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The fly-by-wire system
 and its computers provided

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a way to build potentially more
 maneuverable aircraft.

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>>...an urgent requirement
 to dramatically enhance

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air to air combat maneuverability,
 the program is called HiMat.

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The main emphasis of the flight test
 program is high-g maneuvering

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in the transonic flight regime, where most
 fighter versus fighter combat occurs.

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Composite material makes it possible
 to aeroelastically tailor

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the wings and canards; they bend and twist
 in flight to the most favorable shape

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to give the aircraft increased
 transonic maneuverability and performance.

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>>The Advanced Fighter Technology
 Integration F-16 program;

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the unconventional maneuvers of de-coupled
 flight were evaluated:

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vertical translation,
 lateral translation, pitch pointing,

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yaw pointing, and the maneuver that proved
 most effective for combat, flat turn.

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>>...United States Department of Defense wanted to create a fighter plane
 that would be more agile.

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Stable design gave way to maneuverability.

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>>This latest X program explores
 several different

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yet integrated technologies
 in one demonstrator aircraft.

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>>Slow speed High-Alpha maneuvering is where

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the X-29 will most probably outperform
 current frontline fighters.

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>>Literally hundreds of feet is the
 radius of turn, which is very impressive

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[Beeping]

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[Tone]

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>>A certain barrier exists
 for every flying vehicle.

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It is a barrier that has taken more lives
 than the erroneously named sound barrier.

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It is the stall, or high
 angle of attack, barrier.

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>>The tendency of an aircraft to stall
 and become uncontrollable at slow speeds

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was the greatest limiting factor
 in an airplane's maneuverability.

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>>High-alpha, or high angle of attack,
 is the position of the aircraft's

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body and wings in relation
 to its actual flight path.

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>>The benefit of fighter airplanes

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being able to maneuver
 at high angles of attack is that it

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has the ability to put its weapons
 on a target; point and shoot.

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>>The trouble has been that with the plane's
 nose pitched up at these high

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angles, it continues to fly
 in its original direction.

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This reduces lift, and when there's
 no lift, there's no control.

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[Background sound]

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>>Engineers placed

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special movable paddle-like
vanes near the engine's exhaust.

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These can be deflected

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into the exhaust flow to produce
 both pitch and yaw movements.

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>>Nobody had flown and thrust vectoring
 airplane closed-loop control yet.

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We flew the airplane to 117 degrees
 angle of attack.

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>>The nose strakes allow selective
 triggering of the two hidden vortices

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which come off the nose; we can interrupt
 the flow of one and let the other one

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be still, generating more lift on one side
 and allowing us to turn the airplane.

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>>I believe it will be married
 with micro-machine technology and smart

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skin someday to control an airplane
 in more bird-like flight.

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Major leap in understanding and design;

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really set the stage
 to assist in F-22, F-35.

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[Music]

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>>To maintain the advantage
 in the air, close-in

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aerial combat beyond the normal flight
 envelope parameters

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is necessary

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>>...the capabilities
 of this aircraft to decelerate

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in high angles of attack
 and to roll its nose around the velocity

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vector and flight path
 for pointing and weapons deployment.

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>>If, in fact we succeed, we will have
 demonstrated a new way to fly.

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>>Simply put, the X-31
 allows the pilot to fly controllably

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well beyond that point where normal
 airplanes have their wings stall out.

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>>The X-31s are conducting air-to-air
 engagements against a conventional jet

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fighter.

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>>What you will see
 is the decoupling of the aircraft

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longitudinal axis from the velocity vector
 at high angles of attack.

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>>This maneuver results in a very high turn
 rate and a very low turn radius

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and is one of the fundamental advantages
 of post-stall maneuvering.

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>>Seeing it was jaw dropping.

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>>An airplane is not supposed to do
 what the X-31 did. It's awesome.

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It was literally awesome.

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>>The ACTIVE program began to achieve
 flight research milestones

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with the first ever supersonic pitch
 and yaw vectoring flights.

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>>The nozzles themselves
 will vector the thrust

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plus or minus 20 degrees,
 about 4,000 pounds of load

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each, in any direction at a high rate,
 about 80 degrees per second.

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The X-36 is a remotely piloted
 research aircraft

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developed to demonstrate the maneuvering
 capability of a tailless fighter.

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>>The maneuver capabilities
 of conventional aircraft are also limited

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by the pilot's physiological tolerances,
 such as the ability to withstand G forces.

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[Music]

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>>Pilotless aircraft could be smaller,
 lighter, and more agile.

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With over a mile of lateral separation,

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they autonomously maneuver
 to preserve their configuration.

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>>...down about ten degrees
 relative to the rest of the wing,

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but it allowed the airplane

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to be maneuvered quite aggressively
 compared to the way it was before.

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>>What is it that gives birds
 their dexterity in the air?

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The best minds in aerospace
 have long dreamed of an airplane that can

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change its features and its structures
 and can soar like an eagle.

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[Jet taking off]

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>>At high speeds on high-performance
 aircraft, all wings bend and twist.

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What we're trying to do is essentially
 control that wing aeroelastic twist,

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and by doing so, we're able to improve
 the maneuverability of the airplane.

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>>Nobody has figured out
 how to make flying wings work.

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I mean, we see them
 every day, right? Birds!

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So now when you roll, you get yaw

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in the correct direction
 in the same direction that you're rolling.

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We now have about 90 minutes
 of data to prove this works.

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[Music/Jet flying/Heavy breathing]