Free Republic

EDWARDS AFB - Engineers at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center are testing extremely small sensors - about the diameter of a human hair - to monitor changes in an airplane wing's shape during flight, hoping to harness the information to improve aircraft efficiency and safety by controlling the changes. "We want to be able to change the shape of a wing," said Lance Richards, Dryden's Advanced Structures and Measurement group lead. "The first step in changing the shape of a wing is knowing the shape." The fiber-optic sensors, unlike traditional sensors and strain gauges, are extremely lightweight and are small...

EDWARDS AFB - In response to a request from the state Office of Emergency Services and the National Interagency Fire Center, NASA on Wednesday sent an aircraft equipped with sophisticated infrared imaging equipment to assist firefighters battling several of the Southern California wildfires. The Ikhana unmanned aircraft system, a Predator B modified for civil science and research missions, was launched at 8:45 a.m. Wednesday from its base at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. It is expected to fly over the major blazes burning in the Lake Arrowhead and Running Springs areas and possibly down into...