SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL AEROSPACE REPORTS

A Biweekly Publication of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
VOLUME 44, ISSUE 9 - MAY 5, 2006

06 AVIONICS AND AIRCRAFT INSTRUMENTATION
Includes all avionics systems, cockpit and cabin display devices, and flight instruments intended for use in aircraft.

For related information see also 04 Aircraft Communications and Navigation; 08 Aircraft Stability and Control; 19 Spacecraft Instrumentation and Astrionics; and 35 Instrumentation and Photography.

20060011583 Airbus Industrie, Toulouse, France

Conduct of Flight Tests and On-Board Computing for the A380

Lafourcade, Denis; Flight Test: Sharing Knowledge and Experience; May 2005, pp. 10-1 - 10-11; In English; See also 20060011579; Original contains color and black and white illustrations; Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A03, Hardcopy; Available from CASI on CD-ROM only as part of the entire parent document

The Airbus way of management of the flight tests activity limits the flight test crew to two pilots, one flight engineer and one (or two) flight test engineer (FTE). The latter is in charge of the flight test program and has to conduct the tests sequences during the flight, in order to validate them, on both qualitative and quantitative aspects. To perform theses tasks, a dedicated station is installed on board the aircraft, first fitted with classical electro-mechanical instruments on Concorde or A300, then becoming entirely computer-oriented on the A380. As a consequence of the reduced flight test crew, Airbus developed the telemetry techniques, allowing dynamic message adaptation to the test sequence, as well as deferred data transmission when the aircraft is outside the coverage area. In order to minimize the flight test data reduction time, a dedicated set of computers has also been installed on board to execute automatically a lot of pre-processing tasks. Since the first A300 up to the A380 and A400M, Airbus acquired a broad knowledge of on-board computing, using now standard computers hardware, software and network techniques to provide tests teams with powerful tools. Author

Flight Tests; European Airbus; Electromechanical Devices; Computer Programs; Computer Techniques; Concorde Aircraft; Telemetry; Software Engineering

20060011602 Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, MD, USA

Adding New Instrumentation to Aircraft Platforms

Jordan, Mark; Flight Test: Sharing Knowledge and Experience; May 2005, pp. 12-1 - 12-12; In English; See also 20060011579; Original contains color illustrations; Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A03, Hardcopy; Available from CASI on CD-ROM only as part of the entire parent document

Legacy aircraft platforms face many hurdles; when it comes to testing these include but are not limited to: shrinking budgets, low priority, and lack of instrumentation. These hindrances to test programs are not likely to change in the near future. New low cost interchangeable instrumentation systems are needed to fill the gap between current test capabilities and future requirements.

In recent years, advances in technology have allowed instrumentation systems to greatly shrink both in size and cost. Some of these new instrumentation systems are designed to fit inside of a MK 80 series fuze well and are designed to look like existing bomb components. One of these is a small form factor instrumentation system nicknamed 6 DoF, because it transmits six degree of freedom information to a ground station.

The 6 DoF is a completely self-contained instrumentation system that requires no aircraft interface to operate. The 6 DoF has provided a low cost data collection device for weapon separation test programs for the last couple of years. With the success of the 6 DoF instrumentation systems in weapon separation test programs, the question was raised if a similar system could be used for captive carriage loads and flying qualities test programs.

To meet this need a new low cost, under $30,000, instrumentation system has been developed. This system is designed to receive data from external strain gauges and accelerometers. This new system is a block upgrade of the 6 DoF instrumentation system that has had the internal sensors removed, and has had plugs installed, to take inputs from external sensors. Now instead of having to instrument a specific aircraft for a test program, a store could be instrumented to collect the same data. This system is designed to not only allow the instrumentation to be moved from one type of aircraft to another, but also to allow the instrumentation to be moved from one type of store to another. Legacy platforms through the use of these low cost reusable instrumentation systems will be able to continue to provide new capabilities to the fleet even under reduced funds. Author

Data Acquisition; Instruments; Strain Gages; Flight Characteristics; Degrees of Freedom; Accelerometers

20060011604 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, USA

Optical Air Flow Measurements for Flight Tests and Flight Testing Optical Air Flow Meters

Jentink, Henk W.; Bogue, Rodney K.; Flight Test: Sharing Knowledge and Experience; May 2005, pp. 11-1 - 11-14; In English; See also 20060011579; Original contains color and black and white illustrations; Copyright; Avail.: CASI: A03, Hardcopy; Available from CASI on CD-ROM only as part of the entire parent document

Optical air flow measurements can support the testing of aircraft and can be instrumental to in-flight investigations of the atmosphere or atmospheric phenomena. Furthermore, optical air flow meters potentially contribute as avionics systems to flight safety and as air data systems. The qualification of these instruments for the flight environment is where we encounter the systems in flight testing. An overview is presented of different optical air flow measurement techniques applied in flight and what can be achieved with the techniques for flight test purposes is reviewed. All in-flight optical airflow velocity measurements use light scattering. Light is scattered on both air molecules and aerosols entrained in the air. Basic principles of making optical measurements in flight, some basic optical concepts, electronic concepts, optoelectronic interfaces, and some atmospheric processes associated with natural aerosols are reviewed. Safety aspects in applying the technique are shortly addressed. The different applications of the technique are listed and some typical examples are presented. Recently NASA acquired new data on mountain rotors, mountain induced turbulence, with the ACLAIM system. Rotor position was identified using the lidar system and the potentially hazardous air flow profile was monitored by the ACLAIM system. Author

Flowmeters; Air Flow; Air Data Systems; Flight Tests; Light Scattering; Turbulence; Velocity Measurement; Optical Measurement; Avionics

Source: NASA