257 – Flight Research at NASA Armstrong, Part 2: Fullscale

omega tau science & engineering podcast

Guest: Kevin Weinert, Jim Less, Scott Howe, Hernan Posada
Host: Markus Voelter Shownoter: Bastian Hundt

As part of my trip to the US earlier this year I visited NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base. I conducted six interviews over two days, those concerning full scale (“real”) aircraft are in this episode. We start out with Kevin Weinert, with whom we talk about the Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge project, essentially a flap made of flexible materials to save fuel and reduce noise. Next up is Jim Less, one of NASA’s F-15 and F-18 pilots; we chat about his flying and various research projects where the jets are utilized (you can see this part as a continuation of Episode 73, where we chatted with Dick Ewers). Finally, we talk about flying the MQ-9 and RQ-4 unmanned aerial vehicles with the pilots Scott Howe and Hernan Posada.

Kevin Weinert and the ACTE Project

00:02:21

Armstrong Flight Research | SCRAT Airplane | Gulfstream III | Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge | Flaps | Wing Loading | Vortex | Rebound Effect | Load Alleviation Function | Lift-to-Drag Ratio | Spoilers | Computational Fluid Dynamics | Strain Gauge | SOFIA | SOFIA OmegaTau Part 1 | SOFIA OmegaTau Part 2 | McDonnell Douglas YC-15

Jim "Clue" Less and the F-15/F-18

00:42:30

USAF Test Pilot School | Flying the F-15 OmegaTau Episode | Flying the F-16 OmegaTau Episode | Shaped Sonic Boom Demonstration | Restricted Airspace | Mars Surveyor Lander | Adaptive Flight Controls | United Airlines Flight 232 | Schlieren Photography | Distributed Roughness Elements Research | F-35 | X-56 | F-18 | Arrestor Hook | Auxiliary Power Unit | Inertial Navigation System | Moving Map

Scott Howe and Hernan Posada on UAVs

01:55:21

Unmanned Aerial Verhicle | MQ-9 Reaper | RQ-4 Global Hawk | NOAA | Traffic Avoidance Testing of UAVs | Atmospheric Research with UAVs | ER-2 High-Altitude Airborne Science Aircraft | Autoland | Microsoft Flight Simulator | ADS-B | TCAS | Glide ratio | Garrett TPE331 | Head-up-Display | Flight Managment System