Boeing Subsidiary Building Airplane with No Traditional Control Surfaces for U.S. Government

DARPA tapped Aurora Flight Sciences to build the X-65, a full-scale, experimental aircraft design without movable external flight controls.

Jack Daleo

Friday, January 05, 2024 at 05:27 PM ET

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An artist’s rendering of the X-65 design being developed by Aurora Flight Sciences for DARPA and the CRANE project. [Courtesy: DARPA]

Key Takeaways:

DARPA's CRANE program, featuring Aurora Flight Sciences' X-65 demonstrator aircraft, aims to eliminate traditional external control surfaces like flaps and rudders.
The X-65 will instead use Active Flow Control (AFC) technology, which generates jets of pressured air to manipulate airflow over the aircraft for pitch, roll, and yaw control.
Expected to roll out in early 2025, this innovative approach is projected to reduce aircraft weight and complexity, improve aerodynamic performance, and enable new design possibilities.

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Since the Wright brothers’ first flight more than a century ago introduced wing warping, almost every aircraft manufactured has included adjustable, external control surfaces: whether they be flaps, slats, spoilers, stabilizers, rudders, elevators, ailerons, or some combination of these.

The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), a U.S. Department of Defense unit tasked with developing cutting-edge defense technology, wants to do away with all of them.