The battle for dominance in the skies has always been about transcending boundaries, whether that’s breaking records with speed, flying higher than ever before, or even reimagining the very form of a fighter aircraft. Perhaps the most ambitious concept of the 1990s arrived in the form of the Boeing X-36, an experimental, smallish plane that appeared more like a vision of things to come than a reflection of the era.
Though it never entered production as a frontline fighter, the information it provided to engineers laid the groundwork for the development of today’s most sophisticated stealth jets, such as the Air Force’s forthcoming next-generation fighter, the F-47.
When the X-36 program started, the objective was as ambitious as it was dangerous: design a fighter minus a vertical tail and still make it fly like a dream. McDonnell Douglas Phantom Works, later merged into Boeing, teamed with NASA to create the X-36 as a reduced-scale proof of concept. At only 19 feet in length and weighing around 1,250 pounds with fuel, the test jet boasted a small F112 engine that churned out around 700 pounds of thrust. But brute force was not the objective.
The goal was to demonstrate that extreme flight control and stealth capabilities could compensate for the absence of a conventional tail. Its appearance was unique—forward canards and a broad, futuristic wing shape created an appearance that was unlike anything else in the sky.
It was tested in 1997 at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, and rather than being occupied by a pilot, the X-36 was remotely controlled from the ground through live video feeds and a fighter-style heads-up display. Through 31 flights and over 15 hours of flight time, the jet demonstrated that it wasn’t merely an experiment—it was real. It climbed past 20,000 feet, maneuvered at nose-up angles of as high as 40 degrees, and performed both high-speed and low-speed handling beyond everyone’s expectations. For a plane without a vertical stabilizer, that was amazing.
The key to getting it to fly was in its brain, not its brawn. A computer fly-by-wire system continuously compensated for the unstable design, juggling canards, split ailerons, and a thrust-vectoring nozzle to stabilize the aircraft. Early artificial intelligence programs were also tried, such as a program that enabled the plane to adjust in real time to control surface failure.
It was an early peek at how AI might someday save warplanes in the kinds of situations where human pilots would have lost their ability to control the craft. The outcome was an experimental aircraft that seemed less like a prototype and more like a preview of what the future of fighters might hold.
Even though the X-36 never entered production, its lessons went directly into other experimental planes. Its innovations reappeared in Boeing’s Bird of Prey stealth demonstrator and the X-45 unmanned drone. Years later, its legacy can be seen most distinctly in the F-47, the Air Force’s future sixth-generation stealth fighter. The F-47’s tailless design and wide fuselage reflect the X-36’s daring approach, proving that what was once perceived as a risk is now the future of air combat.
The X-36 wasn’t the sole experiment of its type. Concurrently, other initiatives experimented with extreme tailless and stealthy designs, such as Lockheed’s X-44 MANTA and even speculative concepts like the YF-24. Every single one of these projects played different pieces of the puzzle, but the X-36 excelled because it harmoniously integrated stealth shaping, thrust vectoring, and tailless control into a single compact but potent package.
Looking back, the X-36 story seems like evidence that sometimes the most improbable projects can do it all. On paper, it was simply a small, remote-controlled experimental jet with an odd shape. In reality, it demonstrated that an unstable, tailless airplane could not only survive in the air but thrive. Its direct combat application might have been nonexistent, but its mark is on the design of planes that will rule the skies for decades to come.
As the F-47 readies to go into service, the link to the X-36 is clear. What was initially an odd-looking test vehicle is now the template for tomorrow’s air dominance. It didn’t get to fire a round, but the X-36 demonstrated that defying convention could usher in whole new generations of aircraft—and with them, new opportunities for the fight for the skies.