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NASA Aircraft Safety Test Movies
| NASA has conducted many test on airplane design and safety. Here are some movies showing these tests in no particular order. Our thanks to NASA for the material. These movies require the Windows Media Player and Quick Time Player, if you don't have them you can download them from our home page. |
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Flight 1977
The Ames-Dryden-1 (AD-1) aircraft was designed to investigate the concept
of an oblique (pivoting) wing. The wing could be rotated on its center
pivot, so that it could be set at its most efficient angle for the speed
at which the aircraft was flying. |
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This movie clip shows the F-16 Advanced Fighter Technology Integration aircraft in formation flight with another F-16. Note the lower forward-mounted canards just behind the engine intake, which in a dogfight, would be used for "selective fuselage pointing" to quickly acquire and target the opponent.The AFTI (Advanced Fighter Technology Integration) /F-16 program has been a joint NASA/USAF effort evaluating advanced digital flight controls, automated maneuvering, voice-activated controls, sensors, and close-air support attack systems on a modified F-16. Research and test results could be applied to existing or future aircraft. |
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Since 1980 AeroVironment, Inc. (founded in 1971 by the ultra-light airplane innovator--Dr. Paul MacCready) has been experimenting with solar-powered aircraft, often in conjunction with the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California. Thus far, AeroVironment, now headquartered in Monrovia, California, has achieved several altitude records with its Solar Challenger, Pathfinder, and Pathfinder-Plus aircraft. It expects to exceed these records with the newer and larger solar-powered Centurion and its successors the Centelios and Helios vehicles, in the NASA Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) program. The Centurion is a lightweight, solar-powered, remotely piloted flying wing aircraft that is demonstrating the technology of applying solar power for long-duration, high-altitude flight. It is considered to be a prototype technology demonstrator for a future fleet of solar-powered aircraft that could stay airborne for weeks or months on scientific sampling and imaging missions or while serving as telecommunications relay platforms. |
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The Helios Prototype is an enlarged version of the Centurion flying
wing, which flew a series of test flights at Dryden in late1998. The
craft has a wingspan of 247 feet, 41 feet greater than the Centurion,
2 1/2 times that of its solar-powered Pathfinder flying wing, and longer
than either the Boeing 747 jetliner or Lockheed C-5 transport aircraft.
It is one of several remotely-piloted aircraft, also known as uninhabited
aerial vehicles or UAV's, being developed as technology demonstrators
by several small airframe manufacturers under NASA's Environmental Research
Aircraft and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project. Window
Media Movie 4.40 Megs |
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NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, used
an F-18 Hornet fighter aircraft as its High Angle-of-Attack (Alpha) Research
Vehicle (HARV) in a three-phased flight research program lasting from
April 1987 until September 1996. The aircraft completed 385 research flights
and demonstrated stabilized flight at angles of attack between 65 and
70 degrees using thrust vectoring vanes, a research flight control system,
and (eventually) forebody strakes (hinged structures on the forward side
of the fuselage to provide control by interacting with vortices, generated
at high angles of attack, to create side forces). Window Media Movie 2.28 Megs Additional HARV Movie: Movie - Window Media Movie 8.71 Megs |
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A fleet of lifting bodies flown at the NASA Flight Research Center, Edwards, California, from 1963 to l975 demonstrated the ability of pilots to maneuver (in the atmosphere) and safely land a wingless vehicle. These lifting bodies were basically designed so they could fly back to Earth from space and be landed like an aircraft at a pre-determined site. |
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In 1984 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and
the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) teamed-up in a unique flight
experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), to test the
impact of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with an additive designed to suppress fire. The additive FM-9, a high molecular-weight long chain polymer, when blended with Jet-A fuel had demonstrated the capability to inhibit ignition and flame propagation of the released fuel in simulated impact tests. Window Media Movie 5.0 Megs Additional Impact Movie Movie - Window Media Movie 4.81 Megs |
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This shot, from above and behind the SR-71 in
flight, runs 11 seconds and shows the Aerospike engine and its fuel system
being charged with gaseous helium and liquid nitrogen during one of two
tests. The tests are to check for leaks and check the flow characteristics
of cryogenic fuels to be used in the engine. Window Media Movie 1.62 Megs Additional LASRE Movie Movie - Window Media Movie 2.65 Megs |
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Flight 1960s The primary focus of the NASA space program during the 1960's was on the goal of safely landing astronauts on the Moon before the end of the decade. It was a mammoth undertaking that involved all of the NASA centers. Dryden Flight Research Center made a number of contributions to the NASA space program during the 1960's. Window Media Movie 3.18 Megs Additional LLR Movie Movie - Window Media Movie 3.84 Megs |
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This 25-second clip shows Milt Thompson being
towed in the M2-F1 behind a C-47 aircraft. The M2-F1 lifting body, dubbed the "flying bathtub" by the media, was the precursor of a remarkable series of wingless flying vehicles that contributed data used in the Space Shuttles, the X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator for the next century's Reusable Launch Vehicle, and the X-38 Technology Demonstrator for crew return from the International Space Station. Window Media Movie 4.96 Megs Additional M2F1 Movie Movie - Window Media Movie 2.62 Megs |
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This movie clip runs about 27 seconds and shows the cockpit canopy close-out by the ground crew, the aircraft hanging from the NB-52B wing pylon, and the M2-F2 being dropped away from the mothership. |
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This 14-second video animation shows the Hyper-X research vehicle (X-43A) mounted on a Pegasus launch vehicle beneath the B-52 mothership wing, followed by the launch of the Pegasus¨ with the X-43A still attached. Window
Media Movie 2.06 Megs |
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This 28-second video clip shows Scott Crossfield
descending from the bomb bay of the P2B-1S into the cockpit of the D-558-2,
strapping in, and having the hatch closed by a crewmember. The Douglas
D-558-2 Skyrocket airplanes were among the early transonic research airplanes
like the X-1, X-4, X-5, and X-92A. Three of these single-seat, swept-wing
aircraft flew from 1948 to 1956 in a joint program involving the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA); the Navy-Marine Corps; and
the Douglas Aircraft Company, Long Beach, California. Flight research
was done at the NACA Muroc Flight Test Unit in California, redesignated
in 1949 the High-Speed Flight Research Station (HSFRS). The HSFRS is now
known as the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, California.
The Skyrocket made aviation history when it became the first airplane
to fly twice the speed of sound. Window Media Movie 3.40 Megs Additional Sky Rocket Movie Movie - Window Media Movie 3.40 Megs |
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In April of 1971, Assistant Secretary of the
Air Force for Research and Development Grant Hanson sent a memorandum
noting the comparatively small amount of research being conducted on stalls
(losses of lift) and spins despite the yearly losses that they caused
(especially of fighter aircraft). In the spring and summer of that year,
the NASA Flight Research Center (FRC redesignated in 1976 the Dryden Flight
Research Center) studied the feasibility of conducting flight research
with a sub-scale fighter-type Remotely Piloted Research Vehicle (RPRV)
in the stall-spin regime. In November, NASA Headquarters approved flight
research for a 3/8-scale F-15 RPRV. It would measure aerodynamic derivatives
of the aircraft throughout its angle-of-attack range and compare them
with those from wind tunnels and full-scale flight. (Angle of attack refers
to the angle of the wings or fuselage with respect to the prevailing wind.)
Window Media Movie 4.65 Megs |
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