X-4

From USAFA Folklore

The Northrop Grumman X-4 Bantam (serial no. 46-676), given to the Academy in 1956, was originally located in front of the first Arnold Hall at Lowry Air Force Base and was later moved to the Colorado Springs site. Initially located in the grass quadrangle outside Arnold Hall, it was later placed in the Air Gardens, but has since been transferred to (Edwards AFB?).

The Northrop X-4 Bantam was a small twin-jet airplane that had no horizontal tail surfaces, depending instead on combined elevator and aileron control surfaces (called elevons) for control in pitch and roll attitudes. The hope of some aerodynamicists was that eliminating the horizontal tail would also do away with stability problems at transonic speeds resulting from the interaction of supersonic shock waves from the wings and the horizontal stabilizers. This hope was unrealized.

[edit] Spirit Missions

Being small, the X-4 was often the subject of spirit missions:

• I actually grunted and spat moving the X-4 out of the Air Gardens one night, I think in the fall (I remember that the fountain was dry.) of 1970. Most of my classmates (Rebeleven, '73) physically lifted the thing, passed it across the pool on our backs and hauled it up to the top of the "grassy knoll". They held up the noon meal the next day until we "fessed up". We then marched out of Mitch's in formation, and moved it back, to the cheers of the rest of the wing. - (e-mail, 11-4-1998)

• At one point, a group of cadets (I think the rumor says it was some senior engineering guys, sometime in the late 80's) moved it to the top of Mitch's. No one thought to look up there and no one seemed to know where it was. Legend says it was finally spotted by the pilots of an aircraft doing a noon meal flyover. None of those involved ever came forward to say how it was done. - (e-mail, 10-8-1998)

• About the X-4 Bantam, my father was one of the cadets who put it on top of Mitchell Hall. It happened in the early 70's, not 80's. How they did it, he won't tell me. However, the real story is that a glider pilot was doing is routine fly over and noticed the bantam on top Mitch's. He radioed in and told the tower that he had confirmation on the whereabouts of the X-4. - (e-mail, 10-15-1998)