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Northrop X-4 Bantam 1/72 MPM


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The 163 demonstrated that a fairly well behaved and high speed tailless design would work. The US decided to investigate this with a  design of their using a jet engine rather than the dangerous rocket motor of the 163. Bell did a good job and the X-4was actually a nice little aeroplane to fly. In fact, I think the two built all survived to end their lives in museums.

 

Britain had a similar idea ( the DeHavilland DH108 Swallow)  but, for budgetary reasons, used an existing design (the single seat Vampire) a the basis for their tailless project. This didn't work out so well and all three 108s built were destroyed in fatal crashes.

 

Eric Brown refers to the 108 in his books in two simple words  - "a killer".

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3 hours ago, Eric Mc said:

Sort of.

 

The 163 demonstrated that a fairly well behaved and high speed tailless design would work. The US decided to investigate this with a  design of their using a jet engine rather than the dangerous rocket motor of the 163. Bell did a good job and the X-4was actually a nice little aeroplane to fly. In fact, I think the two built all survived to end their lives in museums.

 

Britain had a similar idea ( the DeHavilland DH108 Swallow)  but, for budgetary reasons, used an existing design (the single seat Vampire) a the basis for their tailless project. This didn't work out so well and all three 108s built were destroyed in fatal crashes.

 

Eric Brown refers to the 108 in his books in two simple words  - "a killer".

As I understand it the X-4 was designed to investigate the tailless configuration's handling at high speeds approaching Mach 1 without, as you say, the dangers of using the Walter rocket motor and its unstable fuel components.  In this it was successful because it amply demonstrated that this configuration was completely unsuitable at those speeds and, like the DH.108, suffered from severe oscillation and other instability issues at around Mach 0.8.   Unlike the '108 though it managed to do this without causing any fatalities.  It seems the X-4 showed that, with the flight control systems available at the time, the tailless configuration with swept wings was a bit of a dead end, designers instead moving on to the very successful delta configuration.  

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On 12/12/2017 at 7:24 PM, raschi said:

Built OOB, only added FODs on intakes. Used Agama alcohol based colors.

A great looking model of this interesting design.  A very nice, smooth finish.  I always find these X Planes fascinating.  It would look great parked next to an Me163 and a DH.108 for comparison.  How did the kit go together?  This is one of MPM's older kits isn't it?

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4 hours ago, Meatbox8 said:

 How did the kit go together?  This is one of MPM's older kits isn't it?

Yes, it is typical older MPM short run kit, that means not very well fit, thick sprue gates, often unusable small parts, but usually an interesting subject that could be built into decent model with some effort (MPM had grown in quality during years and its successor in category "not very good (but acceptable) kit of unusual subject" is IMO other Czech company - the AZ model). This X-4 I built some 8 years ago, so I do not recall much from building progress, but definitelly there was some problem with intakes thus I rather made FODs.

 

Thanks all for watching and comments :wink:

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