First Boeing X-66A donor MD-90 heads to Palmdale

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The first of two former Delta Air Lines McDonnell Douglas MD-90-30 aircraft left storage in Victorville, California early July 21 on a short flight to nearby Palmdale where the aircraft will be sliced and diced to become Boeing’s Transonic Truss-Braced Wing configured  X-66A. TAC first identified N930TB (tango bravo for truss-braced) in March as the lead donor aircraft for the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator program.

Boeing owns a second, N931TB, that will transformed into the new ultra-high aspect ratio winged test aircraft for the NASA test program that begins in 2028. Eventually the X-66A will test CFM’s Open Fan Rise engine after the first phase of evaluations are complete.

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Jon Ostrower
Jon Ostrower is Editor-in-chief of The Air Current, where he leads coverage of the global aerospace and aviation industries. Prior to launching TAC in June 2018, Mr. Ostrower served as Aviation Editor for CNN Worldwide, guiding the network’s global coverage of the business and operations of aviation. Mr. Ostrower joined CNN in 2016 following four and a half years at the Wall Street Journal. Based first in Chicago and then in Washington, D.C., he covered Boeing, aviation safety, and the business of global aerospace. Before that, Mr. Ostrower was editor of FlightBlogger for Flightglobal and Flight International Magazine covering the development of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and other new aircraft programs from 2007 to 2012. He is also an instructor at the University of Southern California in the Viterbi School of Engineering's Aviation Safety and Security program. Mr. Ostrower, a Boston native, graduated from The George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs with a bachelor’s degree in Political Communication. He is based in Seattle.
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