Armstrong Flight Research Center

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The NASA, Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautics research center operated by NASA. Its main campus is located within Edwards Air Force Base and is considered to be NASA's main site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many firsts flight experience, including important support for the first manned aircraft to exceed the speed of sound in flight level with Bell X-1, the highest speed ever recorded by a manned, powerful aircraft (American North X-15), the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft (F-8 DFBW), and many others. AFRC also operates the second site in Palmdale, Ca. known as the 703 Building, after the former Rockwell International/North American Aircraft production facility at Air Force Plant 42. There, AFRC houses and operates several NASA Science Mission Directorate planes including SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy), DC-8 Fly Laboratory , Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. David McBride is currently the center director.

On March 1, 2014, the facility was renamed in honor of Neil Armstrong, a former test pilot at the center and the first human to walk on the lunar surface. The center was formerly known as the Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) from 26 March 1976, in honor of Hugh L. Dryden, a leading aviation engineer who at the time of his death in 1965 was NASA's deputy administrator. It was also previously known as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Muroc Flight Test Units (1945), NACA High Speed ​​Flight Research Station (1949), the Speed ​​Flight Station High NACA (1954), NASA High Speed ​​Flight Station (1958) and NASA Flight Research Center (1959).

AFRC is also the home of Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747 designed to bring the Space Shuttle orbiter back to the Kennedy Space Center if someone lands on Edwards.

Until 2004, the Armstrong Flight Research Center operated the oldest B-52 Stratofortress bomber, the B-52B model (tail number 008) that had been converted into a fall test aircraft, dubbed 'Balls 8.' It dropped a large number of supersonic test vehicles, ranging from X-15 to its final research program, hypersonic X-43A, powered by Pegasus rockets. The plane has retired and is currently on display near the North Gate of Edwards.

Video Armstrong Flight Research Center

Douglas Skyrocket

Its predecessor NASA, NACA, operates Douglas Skyrocket. As the successor of Bell X-1 Air Force, D-558-II can operate under rocket or jet power. It performs extensive tests into aircraft stability within the transsonic range, optimal supersonic wing configuration, rocket effects, and high-speed flight dynamics. On November 20, 1953, Douglas Skyrocket became the first aircraft to fly more than twice the speed of sound when it reached Mach 2.005 speed. Like the X-1, D-558-II can be air launched using the B-29 Superfortress. Unlike X-1, Skyrocket can also take off from the runway with the help of JATO units.

Maps Armstrong Flight Research Center

Controlled Impact Demonstration

Controlled Impact Demonstration is a joint project with the Federal Aviation Administration to research new jet fuel that will reduce fire damage in major aircraft accidents. On December 1, 1984, a Boeing 720 plane was driven remotely flown to a special wing opener that tore open wings, spraying fuel everywhere. Despite the new fuel additives, the resulting fireballs are huge; fire still takes an hour to completely extinguished.

Although fuel additives do not prevent fires, the study did not completely fail. Additives still prevent burning of some fuels flowing over aircraft, and served to cool them, similar to how conventional rocket engines cool their nozzles. In addition, instrumented collision dummies are on the plane for impact, and provide valuable research into other aspects of accident survivability for residents.

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Linear Aerospike SR-71 Experiments

LASRE is a NASA experiment that works with Lockheed Martin to study the design of a reusable launch vehicle based on a linear aerospic rocket engine. The aim of the experiment was to provide in-flight data to help Lockheed Martin validate the computational predictors they developed to design the craft. LASRE is a small, half-span elevator model with eight aerospike engine thrust cells. The experiment, which is mounted behind the SR-71 Blackbird plane, is operated like a kind of "flying wind tunnel".

The experiment focused on determining how reusable engines at the launch of a vehicle engine would affect the aerodynamics of its lifting body at a certain height and speed of about 750 miles per hour (340 m/sec). The interaction of aerodynamic flow with engine blobs may create barriers; design improvements are seen to minimize that interaction.

src: www.nasa.gov

Lunar Landing Research Vehicle

The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle or LLRV is an Apollo Project era program to build a Moon simulator. The LLRVs, humorly referred to as "Flying Bedsteads", are used by the FRC, now known as the Armstrong Flight Research Center, at Edwards Air Force Base, California to study and analyze the pilot techniques required to fly and land Apollo Lunar Modules in the moon floating environment.

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Airplane on Display

• NB-52B Balls 8 NASA 008
• Bell X-1E AF Ser. Number 46-063
• F-104N - NASA 826
• F8 Supercritical wing - NASA 810
• F8 Digital Fly-by-wire - NASA 802
• F-15B ON - NASA 837
• Grumman X-29 - NASA 849
• Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird LASRE - NASA 844
• Northrop HL-10 Lifting Body - NASA 804
• Rockwell HiMAT

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Gallery

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Known employees

• Neil Armstrong
• Marta Bohn-Meyer
• Bill Fund
• C. Gordon Fullerton
• David Hedgley
• Bruce Peterson
• R. Dale Reed
• David Scott
• Milt Thompson

src: www.nasa.gov

Also see

• Gromov Flight Research Institute - Russian partner of the Armstrong Aviation Research Center

src: www.nasa.gov

Reference

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External links

• Official website
• X-Press official bulletin
• Photo Collection for NASA Dryden Aviation Research Center
• The Spoken Word: Recollections of Dryden History, Early Years , edited by Curtis Peebles
• Aviation Research: Problems Facing and What They Should Teach Us by Milton O. Thompson - The early days of DFRC

Source of the article : Wikipedia