North Carolina State University News Services
Box 7504 Raleigh, NC 27695 (919) 515-3470
January 29, 1997
Media Contacts: Dr. Charles Hall, 919/515-5299; [email protected]
Dr. John Perkins, 919/515-5243; [email protected]
Tim Lucas, News Services, 919/515-3470; [email protected]
Scale-Model Test Plane May Help Save Lives, Money
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Testing a new aircraft can be costly and risky. But a new scale-model, remote-piloted test plane developed at North Carolina State University with funding from the U.S. Navy may help reduce those risks and costs by letting researchers identify potential problems before they occur in manned flights.
The test plane, a 17.5 percent scale version of the U.S. Navy's newly updated F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet strike fighter, was developed by a team of NC State researchers led by Drs. Charles Hall and John Perkins. Measuring about 10 feet long, with a 7 1/2 foot wingspan, it is made of state-of-the-art composite materials and is equipped with scale versions of the mechanical systems found on the full-scale F/A-18 E/F. Sophisticated on-board electronics enable it to collect more than 20 megabytes of data during a flight.
In the air, it looks, sounds and maneuvers just the same as the full-scale fighter jet.
"The idea is to fly this remote piloted vehicle (RPV) through a series of test flights to obtain data that can tell us more about how the full-scale plane, which has the same aerodynamics, would respond," says Hall, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. "Because the RPV can make many flights a day, it allows us to collect data from more areas of the flight envelope, in less time, than we could do using full-scale simulators."
Data collected from the plane's on-board computers will be relayed to the Naval Air Systems Command's Aeromechanics Division, where it will be used to update the aerodynamic database of the Super Hornet's full-scale simulator located at the Naval Aircraft Warfare Center, Aircraft Division, in Patuxent River, Md.
The small-scale plane was developed by NC State in cooperation with the Naval Aviation Systems Team, Bihrle Applied Research Inc. and SWB Turbines Inc., with additional input provided by McDonnell Aircraft and NASA Langley Research Center. The plane was demonstrated to Navy officials and aerospace contractors this week at the Johnston County Airport in Smithfield.
What sets the plane apart from previous scale models used in Navy test flights, researchers say, is the complexity of its on-board systems and its capability for sustained flight.
"It has digital data acquisition and telemetry systems, full three-axis flight control systems, six on-board computers and is powered by two jet engines each supplying 35 pounds of static thrust. The complexity of the thing is just mind-boggling," says Perkins, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering.
"The challenge was getting the engineering and technology -- the electronics, computers and transducers -- down to a small enough scale," says Hall.
Designing and building the 140-pound craft took nearly 20 months.
The engineering advancements implemented by Perkins and Hall allow the plane to stay in the air for much longer periods than the so-called "drone" or "drop" scale-model planes previously used by the Navy in flight testing. Longer flights allow the plane to collect more data with less downtime.
In flight, the plane is controlled electronically by a remote pilot stationed nearby on the ground. The pilot sets test parameters and controls flight patterns and maneuvers. On-board computers then record flight data, showing how the plane is performing. "It really allows the pilot to fly the plane to an extent previously impossible with scale models," says Hall.
Using the small-scale plane is like running tests in "a big wind tunnel in the sky," says Chad Miller of the Navy's Manned Flight Simulator. Wind tunnels traditionally have been used to obtain much of the test data on new planes, he says, but are limited in their ability to assess thrust effects and flight control interactions in an unrestricted environment. By using the small-scale test plane, engineers can gather that data without having to use advanced mathematical methods and a massive amount of computations.
RVPs such as Perkins and Hall's plane will yield additional benefits in the future. By using scale-version RVPs while new plane designs are still on the drawing board, engineers can identify and correct potential problems, or accentuate benefits, before the conceptual design goes into production.
"If you can work the bugs out before incurring tooling or construction costs, you can even further save money, reduce risks and produce a better aircraft," Hall says.
-- lucas --
NOTE TO EDITORS: Technical specifications of Perkins and Hall's plane are available from NC State University News Services upon request. Also available are B-roll footage, color slides and black-and-white photographs of the plane. Call Tim Lucas, News Services, (919) 515-3470, or e-mail him at [email protected].
This release is available on the NC State University News Services' Web site at http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/univ_relations/welcom.html
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