NASA’s New X-Plane Looks Goofy But Packs Some Serious Tech

(upbeat piano music)

[Narrator] When NASA thinks about aviation, it thinks big.

Its X-Plane division is famous for stunts like

blowing through the sound barrier with the X-1.

[1900s Radio Announcer] Through the sound barrier.

The first time ever in revel flight.

[Narrator] But the X-57 will be a rather more

refined affair.

It'll be fully electric, essentially a flying Tesla.

It has not two motors, or four, but 14!

The top two are for cruising.

But interestingly the 12 smaller motors along

the wings' leading edges don't provide any thrust,

they just get more air flowing over the wing,

to generate extra lift during takeoffs.

And this is how engineers (laughing),

it reminds (laughing)

this is how they're gonna test those things

before they, before the plane takes off next year

with the ladder truck from Arrested Development.

(bright music)

The X-Plane program is all part

of NASA's plan to reduce feul use emissions

and noise with innovative aircraft design.

Like, check out how skinny these wings are.

Wings on a typical plane are nice and fat,

they have to generate lots of lift to get

the bird off the ground.

(plane engine)

But because the X-57 has extra motors

pushing air over the wings during takeoff,

engineers can scale down the surface area.

That means less drag.

And NASA says that by distributing power

across so many motors,

the plane will use a fifth of the energy

of its gas guzzling cousins.

So imagine the airport of the future,

it doesn't smell, or sound like hell on earth.

Now if only NASA could do something

about those damn baggage fees.