by AUVSI News 

NASA completed the first flight of a new unmanned aircraft designed to lower drag, thereby making future aircraft more fuel efficient.



The vehicle — the Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Lower Drag, or Prandtl-D No. 3 — completed a set of flight tests on Oct. 28, NASA says.



The Prandtl was launched from NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, via a bungee launch and flew for only one minute and 33 seconds on its first flight, reaching an altitude of 160 feet and cruising at 15 mph.



It stretched the envelope during two additional flights, eventually reaching 210 feet and flying for two minutes, 55 seconds.



Prandtl-D No. 3 is the third in the series of aircraft that use a new wing design, allowing them to reduce the wing loading, which is the relationship of the vehicle’s weight to its wing size. It has a wingspan of 25 feet, double the wingspan of the earlier two vehicles. It’s also double the weight.



"It flew beautifully," Albion Bowers, NASA Armstrong chief scientist and Prandtl-D project manager, said in a press release. "This is a slightly different design than the first two Prandtl-D aircraft with the correct twist that we want to optimize the aircraft's efficiency. Next we would like to get the University of Minnesota data-collection system on board and fly it a few times."



The initial flights were intended to validate the vehicle’s aerodynamics. NASA plans to add instrumentation, fly data collection missions in the future and release the aircraft from a remote-controlled tow plane.



Aircraft designs using the same wing loading as the Prandtl-D No. 3 could reduce fuel savings by 11 percent. Using the new wing controls and eliminating the use of aircraft tails could save another 30 percent, according to NASA. This would allow the aircraft to turn and bank like birds, which don’t have vertical tails.



A future version of the aircraft may one day fly over the surface of Mars, NASA says.

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