The Grumman X-29: An experimental aircraft with forward-swept wings that flew test flights from 1984-1991; a joint program of N.A.S.A., the U.S. Air Force, & D.A.R.P.A., the X-29 was composed of parts from the F-5 Freedom Fighter & the F-16 Fighting Falcon, with carbon-fiber wings; the design was inherently dynamically unstable, but the expected exceptional agility was not observed in testing.
Commentary: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (D.A.R.P.A.) is the U.S. Department of Defense's research & development agency; yes, the D.O.D. has a "mad science" division.
Today, the two X-29s are on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Ohio & N.A.S.A.'s Armstrong Flight Research Center in California. I had a toy of the X-29 when I was a boy, but I don't know if it's still somewhere in my parents house or if at some point it was thrown away.
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