Aircraft manufacturers weren't afraid to experiment with new ideas in the 1970s, especially with passenger planes. Take the Concorde jet, for example. It had a unique delta wing design and could fly at supersonic speeds, bringing travelers to destinations twice as fast as any other airline. Even before the crash that killed the Concorde, it was proving to be a failure of an aircraft, though.

The shape of its wings caused the Concorde to poorly operate at lower speeds and needed fuel-thirsty afterburners just to get off the ground. Traveling that fast did the Concorde no favors either as the sonic boom it produced wasn't pleasant for residents who lived in its flight path. It was a lose-lose situation for the plane. Meanwhile, aeronautical engineer Robert T. Jones believed the oblique wing design on a pivot would revolutionize air travel, especially for passenger airlines. So, tests commenced.

NASA determined that such a plane could fly faster than the speed of sound and produce only weak sonic booms that wouldn't be heard by residents on the ground. This would get around the ban on supersonic flights by civilian aircrafts. Because the wing was on a pivot, it could make adjustments to fly at a variety of speeds. Furthermore, the power requirements for take-off and landing weren't as demanding, drastically reducing the noise pollution around airports.