"AIDING DEVELOPMENT - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's unique F-15B is being used for flight tests to develop quiet supersonic aircraft." NASA
Posted on 01/09/2009 9:43:23 AM PST by BenLurkin
supersonic aircraft is nearing completion at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The project uses the center's unique, modified F-15B to gauge the effects of changing the lift surfaces and engine nozzles on the shock waves created in supersonic flight.
It is these shock waves that create the signature sonic booms heard on the ground when a supersonic airplane flies overhead.
Supersonic jets are prevented by law from flying over land, except in specially designated corridors, due to the discomfort and noise of the resultant sonic booms. Quieting these sonic booms could lead to supersonic aircraft that may fly cross-country and decrease travel times.
The Dryden project, given the moniker LaNCETS, for Lift and Nozzle Change Effects on Tail Shock, is the latest quiet supersonic research project in which Dryden has participated in the past five years.
"We're trying to enable that technology by shaping the boom or otherwise minimizing it," LaNCET project manager Tim Moes said.
The first such project was the Shaped Sonic Boom, a collaboration with Northrop Grumman Corp. and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, that used a specially shaped nose on an F-5 jet to see how the different shape affected the shock waves.
A second project, the Quiet Spike, used a telescoping spike mounted on the nose of another Dryden F-15 to change the shock waves. That project was in cooperation with Gulfstream Aerospace.
The LaNCET project is a joint effort of Dryden and two other NASA centers, Langley Research Center in Virginia and Ames Research Center in Northern California.
While both of the earlier efforts focused on the nose of the aircraft, the latest shifts to the tail end of the airplane and takes advantage of a specialized aircraft.
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(Excerpt) Read more at avpress.com ...
"AIDING DEVELOPMENT - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's unique F-15B is being used for flight tests to develop quiet supersonic aircraft." NASA
God, I miss working on those. Best job I ever had.
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