Archives For Flight Test

10 Flight Test YouTube Channels

Video exponentially improves our ability to use picture to communicate 10,000 words, and this is not only one of the fundamental ATOMs but also an elementary and critical element in the strategy to inform and invest. These are just a few of the reasons videos consistently make it to these posts.

Flight Test on YouTube is a bit like Alice in Wonderland — once you go down the rabbit hole, you may not come back out. Here are some fantastic resources and some YouTube channels from FTOs.

NASA’s historic register

GE Aviation

Here’s a sampling of others (with an admitted but unintentional European theme).
Snecma Safran Group

Thales

Dassault Aviation

Airbus

Lockheed Martin shares Edwards AFB

Flight Test organizations generally fall into four broad categories, and I tried to pick a video from each:

  1. Professional Societies
  2. Aerospace Industry and Manufacturing
  3. Research and Development organizations
  4. Test Pilot Schools and university programs

For the fastest way to connect, check out these lists also: Flight Test on Facebook and Twitter.

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3 Factors in Airplane Design – Airplanes by Design

Every engineer has their own opinion about aircraft design, but there are three important characteristics of an airplane that the end user cares about: 1) Performance, 2) Flying Qualities, and 3) Systems. What makes airplane design difficult is that you cannot change one without changing the others. I’ll illustrate with pictures of the F-35 JSF.

 

Performance
Performance answers questions like: How high, and how fast? For example, how fast can the F-35 accelerate from 0.8M to 1.2M, the critical transonic region? A glance at it’s underside reveals a large cross-section, a weakness that mother nature exploits with wave drag. Initial design called for longer and more slender, but it was too tail heavy.

 

Systems
Systems allow the pilot to use the airplane to get it’s job done. In the case of the F-35, that’s to fly and fight. You can see part of the DAS (distributed aperture system), a collection of sensors, that appears as a bump under the nose of the aircraft below. Systems are needed to get the job done but add drag and take up valuable real estate inside the airplane.

 

Flying Qualities
Understanding how the airplane responds to mother nature’s laws will reveal how it responds when pilots ask it to turn tighter while looking over the shoulder in a dogfight. That’s the objective of flying qualities testing like high alpha and spin testing, as shown here. Pilots want the airplane to be responsive and maneuverable, but that can make it unexpectedly hard to fly in places like high angles of attack.

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Airplanes by Design features photographs of aircraft from a test pilot perspective, highlighting aeronautical engineering characteristics and flight test facts. To see all of the these pictures (and many more of this aircraft and it’s unique design characteristics), click here. You will always be able to access any of these pictures by selecting the Flickr icon in the top menu bar.

Click here to read more about this airplane. 

WANTED: Your pictures and videos.

Send a message to @FlightTestFact on Twitter to share your Airplanes by Design stories and photos. See more Flight Test photos on Pinterest too.

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10 Flight Test Facebook Fan Pages

Flight Test on social media is a bit like a water fountain — whenever you are thirsty, you can get a sip, as much flight test news and photos as you want or need.

Here are 3 great way to find out more about FTOs (flight test organizations) and see the kind of work that FTEs (flight test engineers) and test pilots do:
1. Pinterest Flight Test Facts–photos and videos daily from the industry leaders.
2. FTOs page–a growing index of organizations together with links to posts, videos, stories, and photos about each one.
3. @FlightTestFact on twitter — all of the above in one convenient place.

For the fastest way to connect, check out these lists: Flight Test on Facebook and Twitter.

Here are 10 Amazing Facebook Fan Pages
(in no particular order)

1. BAE Systems — designer of the Hawk and highly involved with many other OEMs

2. SAAB — can you Gripen?

3. Equator Aircraft – this Norway based company is the closest thing you can find to open source flight test. They are building their amphibious plane right now and posting updates daily.

4. Society of Flight Test Engineers

5. The National Test Pilot School

6. The American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics

7. Airbus in the US — one of the world’s leading manufacturers of commercial aircraft

8. Pratt and Whitney

9. Pure Power Engine

10. NASA Dryden

 

What is your favorite? What am I missing?

To find out more about flight test organizations like these, check out 10 Flight Test Tweepsor the FTOs page.

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Check out @FlightTestFact on Twitter or Pinterest for more flight test safety references, videos, and information daily.

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