X-planes are a class of experimental aircraft designed to test and demonstrate new innovations in flight—some were created for NASA, others for DARPA or the U.S. military. The first X-plane, X-1, was flown by Chuck Yeager in the 1940s and was the first craft to fly faster than the speed of sound. Over the decades, these aircraft have pushed the boundaries of what humans can do in the air. Here are some of the more bizarre products of our taxpayer dollars, ones that confound our typical understandings of what a plane looks like.
An earlier version of this story was published on January 21, 2022.
