i heard someone is restoring a northrop bantam

[darrenvox]

I cant rember what magazine i was reading but i read that some museum was restoring a northrop bantam, i always thought it was a vert cool aircraft and am glad they are working on it....where abouts was this again

[Mark Allen M]

No clue what it was .... until now!


Northrop-X4-Bantam


Northrop-X4-Bantam


Northrop-X4-Bantam


Northrop-X4-Bantam

[The Inspector]

The aircraft (there are 2) got more and more unstable in all three axis the closer it got to Mach 1 and suffered from aggrivated mach tuck tendancies. Both airframes survived, quite an accomplishment for the 'I'm not sure what'll happen' days of test fight experiments. One is in MUSAF and I believe the other is in NASM, both were restored in the past so perhaps one is just having the cobwebs knocked off. I know the airplane was no favorite of Scott Crossfield according to his autobiography.

[old iron]

The first of the two X-4s is now at the Edwards Base Museum and has been recently restored, though I am not sure that it is on display. The other has been on display at NMUSAF for a long time. None at NASM, though there is the Northrop P-56 of generally similar design, though pushed by contrarotating props.

[airknocker]

From Western Museum of Flight:
http://www.wmof.com/x-4.htm

[Adam Kline]

Somewhat related to this topic is that a few months ago I talked the the Edwards Museum people and there is now a fund raising effort to get the museum moved from deep within the base to the edge that would be accessible to the general public.

[Stephan Wilkinson]

I just wrote about this airplane for Errand Space Smithsonian, though the article hasn't been published yet. The "restored" airplane is the one that was parked for years on the Air Force Academy campus, where it was, shall we say, mistreated by the cadets. It was the airframe that only made about 10 flights before being declared terminally flawed, and it was thereafter used as a parts plane for the #2 airframe, which made 87 (as I remember) productive test flights. The restoration was purely cosmetic--a clean-and-paint job. There is no engine, no cockpit interior, and the canopy is painted over. It is currently on display, as far as I know, in the Edwards AFB test center museum.