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A groundbreaking aircraft being designed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency now has an experimental designation—the X-65. DARPA announced the “X” designation on its social media accounts May 15, a little less than five months after announcing its selection of Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences to produce a detailed design for DARPA’s Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program.

The X-65, shown by DARPA in an artist’s rendering, seeks to enable active flow control using bursts of air rather than moving flight surfaces on the exterior of the wings and tail to control its flight. By “removing jointed surfaces,” such a design could improve flight and reduce cost and wear and tear, and also theoretically enhance the aircraft’s stealth characteristics. The X-65 will include “modular wing configurations that enable future integration of advanced technologies for flight testing,” DARPA noted in a January release.

CRANE has been in the works for several years now, and the contract with Aurora Flight Sciences marked the beginning of the program’s Phase 2, which will include the development of flight software and controls and a critical design review of an X-plane demonstrator. The contract includes an option for a Phase 3, which would involve flying the 7,000-pound X-65.
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L'agence américaine des projets de recherche avancée de défense ou DARPA a sélectionné Aurora Flight Sciences pour construire un avion X afin de démontrer la viabilité de l'utilisation d'actionneurs de contrôle de flux actif (AFC) pour les commandes de vol primaires. Ce contrat constitue la phase 3 du programme CRANE (Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors).
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