In order to test a novel approach to flight control that eliminates the need for external moving parts, DARPA and Aurora Flight Sciences have started construction on the first full-scale X-65 aircraft.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Pentagon's research and development organization, is in charge of the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program, which is creating the X-65 experimental jet. Ever since their invention, airplanes have been managed by movable surfaces like elevators, ailerons, flaps, and rudders.

By developing an aircraft that is fully controlled by pressurized air jets that modify the surrounding airflow over the aircraft while it is in flight, the CRANE program seeks to completely eliminate these.

However, the first X-65 demonstrator will have both traditional moving control surfaces and pressurized air jets known as active flow control (AFC) actuators in order to reduce risk.

Richard Wlezien, program manager for CRANE, stated in a DARPA statement that the X-65 conventional surfaces serve as training wheels to help them comprehend how AFC can be used in lieu of conventional flaps and rudders.

With a 30-foot (9-meter) wingspan and 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) in weight, the X-65 will be similar in size to the T-38 training aircraft that the US military and NASA astronauts fly. At Mach 0.7, according to DARPA, it will be able to attain speeds that "make the flight-test results immediately relevant to real world aircraft design. DARPA also anticipates that the aircraft will have a range of about 900 nautical miles.