NASA's New X-Plane Is an Anyplane Prototype for the People

NASA's lineage of experimental X-planes stretches for nearly 70 years and 60 iterations of novel technology-pushing aircraft. Through this history, you will find supersonic scramjet drones, a completely bonkers "heliplane," blended-wing fighters, a long list of spaceplanes, the joint-strike fighter, a tiny autogyro meant to replace ejection seats in combat aircraft, and a nuclear-powered bomber.

Given this ancestry, perhaps what makes NASA's newly announced X-plane, the X-57 Maxwell, so striking is that the concept is built around what's kind of just a normal-ass general aviation airplane. Its kin may be found among workaday Cessna flight trainers just as much as the myriad delta-wing jet-powered bombers filling out the ranks of the X-plane program. In fact, the plane itself will be nothing more than a Tecnam P2006T, what's been described as an "entry level" twin-engine aircraft.

The X-57, however, will have been a bit modified. For one thing, the design has 14 engines, not two. And it will run entirely on electricity, hence the "Maxwell" (for James Clerk Maxwell, the physicist who theorized electromagnetic radiation). It will have no room for passengers or cargo or much of anything besides a pilot—the interior will be almost completely occupied by huge, heavy batteries (800 pounds).

All of those tiny engines will be mounted on super-skinny NASA-developed wings. 12 of them will be used only for gaining speed on takeoff, while the two engines mounted on the far ends of the wings will take care of in-flight propulsion. While electric planes are nothing new, the Maxwell will be what few (if any) of them are: fast. It's not racing a jetliner by any means, but the X-57 will cruise at 170 miles per-hour, handily beating out the 43 mph of the Solar Impulse (not that it's a race).

What makes the Maxwell an anyplane is ultimately less its P2006T airframe than its intended purpose, which is practicality. As noted in a NASA press release, the distributed engine architecture of the plane should result in a five-time reduction in energy required to power a private plane at the same cruising speed. It's hoped that the Maxwell will form the early foundations of a quiet, clean, and energy-efficient regional/short-distance airliner. This will take some serious advances in fuel cell/battery technology, but it's hard to think that electric-powered flight isn't foretold, at least for flights within about 100 miles (which is still a lot of regional flights).

"If batteries continue to be on the same rapid increase in energy density that they have been on over the past 10 years or so, one can envision five to 10 years out in the future the battery technology would be such that this particular aircraft could be enabled for a commercial-type aspect," Matt Redifer, the chief engineer on the project, told the Washington Post.

According to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, the X-57 should begin flying next year.