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NASA, Boeing, Consider New Thin-Wing Aircraft Research Focus

✇Ames Research Center – NASA
By:Lillian Gipson
24 April 2025 at 12:05

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

A white and silver model of a plane with thin-wings is mounted on a pole with orange light illuminating the back of the room.
A Boeing-built X-66 full-span model underwent testing in the 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley between January and March 2025.
NASA / Brandon Torres

NASA and Boeing are currently evaluating an updated approach to the agency’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project that would focus on demonstrating thin-wing technology with broad applications for multiple aircraft configurations.

Boeing’s proposed focus centers on a ground-based testbed to demonstrate the potential for long, thin-wing technology. Work on the X-66 flight demonstrator – which currently incorporates a more complex transonic truss braced wing concept that uses the same thin wing technology as well as aerodynamic, structural braces — would pause for later consideration based on the thin-wing testbed results and further truss-braced configuration studies. 

Under this proposal, all aspects of the X-66 flight demonstrator’s design, as well as hardware acquired or modified for it, would be retained while the long, thin-wing technology is being investigated with more focus. NASA and Boeing would also continue to collaborate on research into the transonic truss-braced wing concept.

The proposal is based on knowledge gained through research conducted under the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project so far.

Since NASA issued the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator award in 2023, the project has made significant progress toward its goal of informing future generations of more sustainable commercial airliners. Boeing and NASA have collaborated on wind tunnel tests, computational fluid dynamics modeling, and structural design and analysis aimed at exploring how best to approach fuel-efficient, sustainable designs.

This research has built confidence in the substantial potential energy-savings benefits that technologies investigated through the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project and other NASA research can make possible. The Boeing proposal identifies the thin-wing concept as having broad applications for potential incorporation into aircraft with and without truss braces. 

NASA and Boeing are discussing potential options for advancing these sustainable flight technologies. NASA’s ultimate goal for this sustainable aircraft research is to achieve substantial improvements for next-generation airliner efficiency, lower costs for travelers, reduced fuel costs and consumption, and increase U.S. aviation’s technological leadership. 

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Wind Over Its Wing: NASA’s X-66 Model Tests Airflow

✇Ames Research Center – NASA
By:Dede Dinius
5 February 2025 at 15:00

2 min read

Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)

There is a half model of an airplane in the center of the photo that is painted white, the background of the photo is black in the center with blue lights all around the side. The floor that the half model of the plane sits on is white.
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions to obtain engineering information to influence design of the wing and provide data for flight simulators.
NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete

NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator (SFD) project recently concluded wind tunnel tests of its X-66 semi-span model in partnership with Boeing. The model, designed to represent half the aircraft, allows the research team to generate high-quality data about the aerodynamic forces that would affect the actual X-66.

Test results will help researchers identify areas where they can refine the X-66 design – potentially reducing drag, enhancing fuel efficiency, or adjusting the vehicle shape for better flying qualities.

Tests on the Boeing-built X-66 semi-span model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. The model underwent tests representing expected flight conditions so the team could obtain engineering information to influence the design of the aircraft’s wing and provide data for flight simulators.

Photo with part of an airplane wing colored white, with markings is in the foreground, the background has white vertical lines.
NASA’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project concluded wind tunnel testing in the fall of 2024. Tests on a Boeing-built X-66 model were completed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley in its 11-Foot Transonic Unitary Plan Facility. Pressure points, which are drilled holes with data sensors attached, are installed along the edge of the wing and allow engineers to understand the characteristics of airflow and will influence the final design of the wing.
NASA/Brandon Torres Navarrete

Semi-span tests take advantage of symmetry. The forces and behaviors on a model of half an aircraft mirror those on the other half. By using a larger half of the model, engineers increase the number of surface pressure measurements. Various sensors were placed on the wing to measure forces and movements to calculate lift, drag, stability, and other important characteristics.

The semi-span tests follow earlier wind tunnel work at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, using a smaller model of the entire aircraft. Engineers will study the data from all of the X-66 wind tunnel tests to determine any design changes that should be made before fabrication begins on the wing that will be used on the X-66 itself.

The SFD project is NASA’s effort to develop more efficient aircraft configurations as the nation moves toward aviation that’s more economically, societally, and environmentally sustainable. The project seeks to provide information to inform the next generation of single-aisle airliners, the most common aircraft in commercial aviation fleets around the world.  Boeing and NASA are partnering to develop the X-66 experimental demonstrator aircraft.

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