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...

PALMDALE - Its exterior bristling with sensors and collection equipment, its interior packed with scientific instruments, NASA's DC-8 flying laboratory is prepared to take off this morning to study the air over the Arctic Circle. The aircraft will participate in the Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites - or ARCTAS - mission, a study of the makeup of the Arctic atmosphere and how it is affected by pollutants. "As of today, we're ready to go. We're really excited," Frank Cutler, Dryden DC-8 project manager, said Monday as researchers completed the final checks on their...

PALMDALE - NASA's SOFIA infrared-observatory aircraft spent several nights parked on an unlit ramp next to its hangar as its telescope team got a working knowledge of how telescope operating systems interact and the experience of tracking celestial targets from the ground. Their primary celestial target was the North Star, NASA said. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, consists of a modified Boeing 747 jet fitted with a 22-ton German-built infrared telescope. The aircraft is housed at the NASA Dryden Aircraft Operations Facility in Palmdale. In addition to establishing a functional baseline for operation of the telescope's control...

EDWARDS AFB - NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, the space agency's primary flight test facility, historically has been a key component of the first "A" in National Aeronautical and Space Administration. But as NASA priorities shifted over the last three years to focus more on spaceflight, and aeronautical research declined, Dryden was seen as in danger of losing its mission. Now, however, Dryden's outlook is greatly improved: The center has broadened its reach, added to its stable of research aircraft and is trying to hire engineers to handle the increased workload. After offering buyouts and early-retirement incentives to workers just...

EDWARDS AFB - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is studying using surplus Navy Phoenix missiles as hypersonic test platforms. The missiles, with the explosives and targeting systems removed, would be launched from the center's F-15 at speeds nearing Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound. The missile, carrying a test article, would then speed to Mach 5, the threshold of hypersonic speeds. The project is intended to provide a new capability to flight test research payloads at hypersonic speeds, Dryden project manager Tom Jones said. It will bridge the gap between wind tunnel and ground model tests and full-scale...

High-tech infrared sensors mounted on an unmanned aircraft were used to aid firefighters against the recent Esperanza fire in Riverside County. The project was the first practical application of a program by NASA's Dryden Flight Research and Ames Research Center, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems and the U.S. Forest Service to utilize unmanned aircraft in mapping and battling wildfires. The aircraft, dubbed Altair, is a high-altitude version of General Atomics' Predator B aircraft and designed specifically for scientific missions. It is equipped with an infrared sensor, developed at NASA Ames Research Center in northern California, used to identify hotspots and map...

EDWARDS AFB - NASA engineers are working on a means of training pilots in new methods to successfully fly and land airplanes in emergencies. The project, a joint effort with the Department of Homeland Security and United Airlines, as well as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, is meant to study the effectiveness of using an aircraft's engines to control its flight when the usual flight controls are ineffective. In a technique known as throttles-only control, pilots of an aircraft in which the flight surfaces are inoperable instead use the aircraft engines to direct the airplane. For instance, increasing the...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EDWARDS AFB - NASA Dryden Flight Research Center is preparing to flight test a prototype blended wing body aircraft as part of a joint program with the Air Force Research Laboratory and The Boeing Co. This unusually-shaped aircraft design - described as a cross between a conventional aircraft and a flying wing - is believed to offer greater fuel efficiency by providing more lift and better aerodynamics. The aircraft is shaped as an elongated triangle, with a smooth line from the fuselage extending out into the wings. The Air Force is interested in the technology, should it prove viable,...

Northrop Grumman Corp. will design a supersonic experimental aircraft that employs a wing that varies position for most efficient flight performance under a $10.3 million contract from the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. The oblique flying wing program aims to design and conduct the first-ever flight tests of a tailless, supersonic, variable sweep oblique flying wing... In an oblique wing aircraft, one wing of the aircraft is swept forward and the other backward in an asymetrical configuration, which varies with flight speed. The wing, also known as a "scissors wing," pivots over a center point, shifting angle as the...

EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE - Planning for the upcoming open house on Oct. 22 and 23 is hitting a fever pitch as base officials finalize one of the most diverse air shows to hit the Antelope Valley and Los Angeles area in years. This year there will be just under seven hours of continuous flying featuring nearly 34 separate flight demonstrations; more than triple those of most shows common to southern California. Some highlights include a special performance by aviation legend Chuck Yeager flying a P-51 Mustang, the same type of aircraft Yeager flew when he became an ace in...

MOJAVE - The X-37, an unmanned technology concept demonstrator for future space vehicles, made its first aerial foray Tuesday into the skies over Mojave. Slung beneath Scaled Composites' White Knight carrier, the X-37 was carried to an altitude of 37,800 feet in the 81-minute flight, said Jan Walker, spokesman for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which oversees the program. All systems performed as expected and the captive-carry flight was deemed a success. Additional such captive-carry flights - in which the vehicle remains attached to the White Knight - are expected before three planned drop tests that will test the...

EDWARDS AFB - After taking a year off, the Edwards Air Force Base Open House and Air Show returns with a bang - and a boom and a roar - on Oct. 22 and 23. The free event will feature seldom-seen aircraft in the air and on the ground as the base pulls out all the stops to showcase military and civilian aviation. "It's looking real good," said Edwards spokesman John Haire of the tentative show lineup, expected to feature more flying than in recent years. Making its aerial debut at Edwards will be the unmanned Predator, used in combat...

EDWARDS AFB - Calling Dryden Flight Research Center "a magical place," NASA Administrator Michael Griffin assured a future role for the agency's historic center of flight research. "Dryden is an important center with an important role," he said. "We're not even thinking about not having Dryden. We're not going to let anything bad to happen to it." Forty days into his tenure at the head of the space agency, Griffin visited Dryden on Tuesday, learning of ongoing projects and speaking with center employees. "This is the place where real things happen in the world of flight," Griffin said, noting he...

LANCASTER -Antelope Valley College played host to educators and a few NASA Dryden Flight Research Center employees as part of a two-day workshop to demonstrate to the educators how to teach composites technology to their students. Composites are known to many in the "Aerospace Valley" as those materials that make the stealth bomber stealthy and SpaceShipOne a contender for getting a featherweight rocket ship into space. Participants created B-2 bomber models out of shaped foam core and a carbon fiber outer skin. The resultant models measured about 16 inches tall and weighed less than a large apple. The workshop was...

FORT STOCKTON, Texas - NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, the U.S. Air Force Flight Test Center and Blacksky Corp. joined forces on the prairie lands of West Texas to fly small aerospike rocket nozzles. The effort, called the Dryden Aerospike Rocket Test, provided the first known data from a solid-fueled aerospike rocket in flight. Two 10-foot-long solid-fueled rockets with aerospike nozzles were flown successfully on two consecutive flights March 30 and 31. Under perfect skies and calm winds, the rockets ascended from the King Ranch launch site at the Pecos County Aerospace Development Corp. Flight Test Range in Fort Stockton,...

EDWARDS AFB - Someday, aircraft will be able to learn from past experiences and apply that knowledge to make changes in the way they fly. The first steps to that science fiction-like notion are under way at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. "We're edging ever so slowly towards somewhat living, breathing, thinking vehicles of the future," said John Carter, Dryden program manager for intelligent flight controls. "We expect someday almost all vehicles will have some aspect of learning software." An early version of such a system made a flight test last summer on a specially...