Chinese researchers say they have revived a wheel-less landing technology invented by Nasa more than 60 years ago, and it is being used on the country’s latest hypersonic test plane.
The skid landing system was developed, based on the existing technology, by Wei Xiaohui, a professor at the university’s key laboratory of fundamental science for national defence. Skid landing was first used by Nasa but then abandoned because it was too dangerous. Its X-15 rocket-powered aircraft made a brief manned hypersonic flight at Mach 6 in 1967, using a pair of skids to land as there was no room for landing gears in its small wings.
So if the aircraft tilts too much to the right, the pad attached to the skid on the left will come down and touch the runway, with the friction changing the balance and bringing the plane back to its correct course. The machine learning algorithms identify the best ways to land so that the skid landing gear control system can keep the plane on course in any conditions by exchanging information based on data collected by sensors.