Design Innovation and Origins
The Ares emerged from a 1981 study conducted by U.S. Army aviators Jim Kreutz and Milo Burroughs, who recognized critical deficiencies in existing close air support aircraft. Their low-cost battlefield attack aircraft (LCBAA) concept sought to address fundamental problems plaguing ground attack missions: inadequate low-altitude maneuverability, susceptibility to stall, and mechanical complications from gun gas ingestion that had troubled aircraft like the A-10 Thunderbolt II.
Burt Rutan's design team at Scaled Composites transformed these requirements into one of aviation's most unconventional aircraft configurations. The Ares featured an asymmetric layout with the fuselage offset three inches to the left of centerline, positioning the aircraft's primary armament—initially a 30mm Gatling gun—on the right side with its firing barrel just 18 inches from the lateral center of gravity to minimize recoil-induced yaw.
Revolutionary Configuration
The aircraft's canard design incorporated foreplanes swept seven degrees forward, a configuration that reached critical angle of attack before the main wings. This arrangement provided inherent stall protection while maintaining full roll control authority—a crucial safety feature for low-altitude ground attack missions where pilot workload reaches maximum intensity.
Perhaps most remarkably, the Ares positioned its engine inlet entirely on the left side of the aircraft, completely eliminating the gun gas ingestion problems that had plagued previous designs. The original turboprop powerplant concept was abandoned when engineers discovered that propeller blades were vulnerable to debris kicked up by the nose wheel during ground operations.
Manufacturing and Development
Scaled Composites constructed the single Ares demonstrator in 1986 at their Mojave, California facility during a period of significant corporate transitions. Founded by Burt Rutan in 1982, the company had been acquired by Beech Aircraft Corporation in 1985, then sold back to Rutan by Raytheon in 1988, before he transferred ownership to Wyman-Gordon.
Test pilot Doug Shane conducted the aircraft's maiden flight on February 19, 1990, beginning a flight test program that would eventually accumulate more than 250 hours. The aircraft met its original design specifications for performance and range while demonstrating the viability of its unconventional configuration.
Military Evaluation and Testing
In 1991, the U.S. Air Force contracted Scaled Composites to install and test a 25mm cannon system aboard the Ares. The weapon integration proved successful, validating the aircraft's gun platform concept and demonstrating that the asymmetric design effectively managed recoil forces without compromising flight characteristics.
Despite meeting its design objectives and successful weapons testing, the Ares remained a technology demonstrator rather than entering production. The aircraft's innovative solutions to ground attack aircraft problems influenced subsequent military aviation development, particularly in addressing gun gas ingestion and recoil management challenges.
Transition to Research Platform
Following military evaluation, the Ares entered storage at Mojave Spaceport in December 2000. When Scaled Composites became a Northrop Grumman subsidiary in 2005, the aircraft returned to flight status, with its first post-storage flight occurring on March 7, 2008.
The unique demonstrator transformed into a commercially available research test bed, offering aerospace companies and research institutions access to its proven unconventional configuration for experimental programs. This transition reflected the broader evolution of Scaled Composites under Northrop Grumman ownership toward specialized prototype development and experimental aircraft fabrication.
Cultural Impact and Legacy
The Ares gained unexpected cultural recognition through its appearance in the 1992 film "Aces: Iron Eagle III," where it portrayed a fictional Messerschmitt Me 263 fighter. This Hollywood role introduced the aircraft's distinctive asymmetric configuration to popular audiences beyond the aerospace community.
More significantly, the Ares demonstrated that radical departures from conventional aircraft design could successfully address persistent military aviation challenges. Its canard configuration and composite construction techniques contributed to advancing aircraft design methodology, while its innovative approach to gun gas ingestion prevention influenced subsequent ground attack aircraft development programs.
Today, the single Ares remains operational as a research platform, continuing its role in advancing aerospace technology more than three decades after its first flight. The aircraft stands as testament to Burt Rutan's design philosophy of challenging conventional wisdom to achieve breakthrough performance capabilities.