China’s supersonic plane will use NASA’s landing technology

Astronaut Neil Armstrong inside the X-15 in California. Photo: Reuters/NASA

According to Sputnik (Russia), a research team from China’s Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics (NUAA) said that with the application of available technology, this newest supersonic aircraft can land at nearly any airport “as long as there is a concrete runway”.

Landing skids are commonly seen in helicopters, certain types of seaplanes or specialized aircraft such as the British Blackburn Buccaneer attack aircraft during the Cold War. Sliding feet are rarely used in conventional aircraft because they are less flexible than rollers.

However, Chinese researchers have taken a model from NASA’s X-15 rocket to apply the slide system to its supersonic aircraft.

Built in the 1950s, the X-15 still holds the record for the fastest manned aircraft ever. During the flight on October 3, 1967, the X-15 aircraft reached a speed of Mach 6.7 at an altitude of 31,000 m.

In essence, the X-15 is a giant missile. It is launched from under the wing of the B-52 Stratofortress “flying fortress” and is powered by a large rocket engine. It is because of this that the X-15 does not have room to fit the wheels and that is also why the designers created two slides that protrude from the rear wing.

However, the somewhat clumsy design of the X-15 only allowed the aircraft to land on a dry floor and had to remove the tail section before landing to allow the glider to contact the ground. The sliding legs are quite flimsy. In an incident in 1962, a slip leg was broken, causing the plane to dive during landing.

To overcome this shortcoming, researchers from Nanjing University said they installed brakes on each slide. The scientists also applied learning algorithms to evaluate other factors, such as the weather, to adjust the plane’s direction when it landed.

Landing gear isn’t the only thing the NUAA team has drawn from American initiatives. In December 2021, the team tested an engine that could switch from conventional turbofan operation to a supersonic jet engine. This is also a design proposed by a NASA engineer in the 1990s, but the idea was rejected and included in the secret file.

With a speed faster than Mach 5, the supersonic aircraft can easily surpass most air defense systems. The flight time of supersonic aircraft will also be shortened by half compared to current fighters. A supersonic plane could fly from Tokyo to Los Angeles in just two hours.

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