X-4 Bantam Performing a Flight Test Over Muroc, CA

This 1-minute, 3-second video taken in the 1950s shows the semi-tailless X-4 Bantam research aircraft performing a flight test at the NACA High-Speed Flight Research Unit in Muroc (now Edwards), CA.
The X-4 was designed to test a semi-tailless wing configuration at transonic speeds. Many engineers believed in the 1940s that the such a design, without horizontal stabilizers, would avoid the interaction of shock waves between the wing and stabilizers. These were believed to be the source of the stability problems at transonic speeds up to Mach 0.9.
Two aircraft had already been built using a semi-wingless design - the rocket-powered Me-163 Komet flown by Germany in World War II, and the British de Havilland DH.108 Swallow build after the war. The Army Air Forces signed a contract with the Northrop Aircraft Company on June 11, 1946, to build two X-4s. Northrop was selected because of its experience with flying wing designs, such as the N9M, XB-35 and YB-49 aircraft.
The resulting aircraft was very compact, only large enough to hold two J30 jet engines, a pilot, instrumentation, and a 45-minute fuel supply. Nearly all maintenance work on the aircraft could be done without using a ladder or footstool. A person standing on the ground could easily look into the cockpit. For control without horizontal tail surfaces, the X-4 used combined elevator and aileron control surfaces (called elevons) for control in pitch and roll attitudes. The aircraft also had split flaps, which doubled as speed brakes.
The first X-4 (serial number 46-676) was delivered to Muroc Air Force Base, CA, in November 1948. It underwent taxi tests, and made its first flight on December 15, 1948, with Northrop test pilot Charles Tucker at the controls. Winter rains flooded Rogers Dry Lake soon after, preventing additional X-4 flights until April 1949. The first X-4 proved mechanically unreliable, and made only 10 flights. Walt Williams, the head of the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit (as Dryden was then known) called the aircraft a "lemon." The second X-4 (serial number 46-677) was delivered during the halt of flights, and soon proved far more reliable. It made a total of 20 contractor flights. Despite this, the contractor flight program dragged on until February 1950, before both aircraft were turned over to the Air Force and the NACA. The first X-4 never flew again, serving as a spare parts bin for the second aircraft.
To learn more about the X-4 Bantam visit: www.nasa.gov/c...

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Scotty Crossfield, Pilot