Our friend Bob Cox at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put his tin foil hat on and ran the gauntlet at Area 51 last week to snap this neverbeforeseen shot of an alien spacecraft from the Planet Blue.
Well, not exactly.
The intrepidest of intrepid JSF reporters snapped this photo of a carrier varient JSF on its way to drop testing at the Vought facility there in Texas.
Lockheed Martin folks tell us this aircraft is CG-1, a ground test model that was being hauled to Vought Aircraft’s facilities for, get this, drop tests. Now that’s a test I want to see.
So to dispel any conspiracy theories out there, there is no evidence to lead us to believe that this aircraft was flying over the rural areas and suddenly dropped in for an unscheduled visit. In fact, although the carrier version is designed for hard landings, this wasn’t one.
Be sure to read the rest of his post and a JSF test update. And keep your eyes pealed. Maybe you’ll catch the next JSF sighting at your local haunts.
(Gouge: BC)
– Christian
You are going to drop an 83-million-dollar plane to the floor?
Are these the same scientists who built the plane?
As opposed to not testing it?
You really need to drop a real aircraft from a ladder to see what happens to it?
Yes, you do. Simulations only go so far.
So, what exactly do you simulate here: Warplanes falling from a shelf in a hangar?
Please be patient while explaining that to me, I’m black…
I doubt it’s a complete aircraft. It’s probably an airframe with ballast.
Yeah, it will be the same airframe used for static tests… this airframe is now useless… it’s outlived it’s worth and a good way to gain some data is to drop test it.
Interestingly enough… I have heard people saying (in the industry) that the people managing the JSF project were trying to save costs by making this airframe also perform the fatigue tests!!! Luckily somebody down the line had the intelligence to listen to the engineers and create a brand new airframe for that test.
Back in the day, when I was doing landing gear design, drop tests were standard procedure for carrier based aircraft. Maybe they still are. The A-7, for example, was designed for a 30 ft/sec sink speed. Vought has a drop test facility in Grand Prairie and is across town from the F-35 factory in Fort Worth.
The first drops could be quite exciting with parts flying around the test lab.
Actually, I remember seeing test footage from FA-18 drop tests. I was amazed at how high they dropped from. I think people are forgetting just how violent a carrier landing can be. It would probably be nice to know the bird can handle it,
Looks like Gargamel is using stolen Smurf technology.
F-18 Drop slow motion here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUYcuS6-9RY
Shit I work at one of the 2 Vought facilities in the Dallas Fort Worth area. I need to figure out if it is coming to mine.
To the poster “Vstress” :
Part I :
You wrote: “I have heard people saying (in the industry) that the people managing the JSF project were trying to save costs by making this airframe also perform the fatigue tests!!! Luckily somebody down the line had the intelligence to listen to the engineers and create a brand new airframe for that test.”
You mean that it’s not realistic to perform both tests on the same test airframe because these two types of strain (metal fatigue and rough landings, on land or sea) never show up simultaneously? Naah, you’re probably right: NOT on carrier planes! Silly me. Stupid, stupid, me.
(Continued)
Part II :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpcMHAs81OY&NR...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGoSCX9V4fo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s31Q-p4E5P0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQc557C-j-8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRfLyp8MgLM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYGiuVq5JD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHGp5wEuRAE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLfwg-pBNE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBJnkdQ_uXQ&NR...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3DtAMmDg4Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gpCLeWqY0w
Go ahead, keep building the F-35! Music, maestro!
Yup its here, its about a 1000ft away from me but access to the test lab has been restricted so no looking. dang
If you read cagepete’s response, you would know that this is simulating a hard landing.
And you need a complete airframe with pitot tube, antennae and navigation lights etc. for that?
Here, this is how things are done since over half a century ago, EVEN in the U.S.A. (!) … that is: Until Lockheed Martin decided to build or rent a test center and throw its prototypes down the roof for “toughness testing” :
“Drop test:
This massive test rig simulates all the landings.
The forward speed on landing can be represented by spinning the wheels, the sinking speed by dropping the complete undercarriage units at controlled velocities, and a cross-wind by moving the plates beneath the under-carriage.” (Etc. . Quotes from the same small old children book I mentioned in another thread – glad that I didn’t stash it away already for another 30 years)
May I make my personal contribution to this F-35’s carrier variant’s test plan? Don’t forget to test the wheel brakes!
Who ever said anything about antennae and navigation lights?
Why are the mock-up’s wings folded? Aren’t they to be folded only under deck, to take up less space? Or is it necessary to test hard landings on parked aircraft too?
Because it is being carried on the back of a truck.
A suspect answer… The much bigger Space Shuttle was never carried on its crawler-transporter along the Crawlerway “with folded wings” from N.A.S.A.‘s Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39.
GOTCHA !!!
You aren’t making any sense.
The shuttle doesn’t travel on a regular highway. Anyway, its wings don’t fold.
Are you insinuating that N.A.S.A. completely forgot to perform a single drop test on any of its Space Shuttles? Sorry, you don’t sound very convincing.
I never said that.
Try reading my posts.
I’m pretty sure you don’t actually want an answer, but here goes.
Some airplanes and spaceships do different things. When they do different things, they experience different conditions. A really fast airplane will have different things to deal with than a slow airplane.
This means that different airplanes will need to be built for different conditions. It also means they’ll need to be tested for different conditions. It wouldn’t make sense to test a news helicopter on a bomb-dropping range, for example, because news helicopters don’t drop bombs.
With me so far?
The shuttle doesn’t have to land on the deck of a pitching, rolling aircraft carrier. Hence, drop tests aren’t needed, because it’s probably never going to hit a stationary runway that hard.
Likewise, the space shuttle doesn’t have to fit into a crowded hangar deck. Hence, folding wings aren’t necessary.
The JSF is routinely expected to land on decks of pitching, rolling aircraft carriers. Therefore, it helps to know if it can stand up to that kind of abuse.
The JSF is also expected to be jammed into hangar decks where space is at a premium. Folding wings will help it fit into cramped spaces.
The space shuttle does different things than the JSF. Therefore, it isn’t built the same and they don’t test it the same.
Clear?
To the poster “recentweasel” :
Part I :
You wrote: “The space shuttle does different things than the JSF. Therefore, it isn’t built the same and they don’t test it the same. Clear?”
Fourteen.
On a more serious note: The poster “Cagepete” wrote: “…drop tests were standard procedure for carrier based aircraft… The A-7, for example, was designed for a 30 ft/sec sink speed.”
30 feet / second = ~ 10 meters / second.
The Space Shuttle:
1) “In the lower atmosphere, the orbiter flies much like a conventional glider, except for a much higher descent rate, over 50 m/s (180 km/h; 110 mph) ” = of VERTICAL SPEED !!!
2) “To assist the speed brakes, a 12 m (39 ft) drag chute is deployed either after main gear or nose gear touchdown (depending on selected chute deploy mode) at about 343 km/h (213 mph) ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle#Re-ent...
(Continued)
Part II :
Sorry, but no carrier plane hits the deck with 343 km/h (213 mph). Even the rocket-like, almost wing-less Starfighters took off and landed from fixed runways with “only” 200 km/h = a consequence of that being new sets of tyres after each four flights. Since originally – in the cosmically dreaming 70’s – hundreds of Space Shuttles were planned (before colder heads realized that there simply weren’t enough missions even for a dozen Space Shuttles, no matter how cheap their unit cost), building enough prototypes to test every single flight phase, including touch-down, wouldn’t have been SUCH A stupid idea.
So wait, are you skeptical of Lockheed’s policies or angry that the space shuttle wasn’t drop tested?
Though the space shuttle comes down at an extreme angle, it flares before landing, and has a big, long runway to bleed off speed on.
A carrier-based aircraft, on the other hand, has to land on a very short deck. Carrier aircraft can’t flare, so there’s nothing to bleed off vertical drop; they just slam into the deck. We haven’t even gotten to the fact that carrier decks are often pitching violently in storm conditions, which is going to introduce a lot more vertical motion. The stresses on the landing gear are going to be intense.
So the comparison’s moot.
Given there have been countless carrier mishaps, but no landing gear failures during space shuttle landings, I’m pretty confused as to why you’re even drawing the comparison to begin with.
Or are you saying that despite the huge number of carrier-landing mishaps that happen all the time, we don’t actually need to harden aircraft to tolerate them?
To the poster “deceasedweasel” :
You wrote: “The stresses on the landing gear are going to be intense.”
Using a whole airframe to test a single component, when the few available airframes were allegedly needed to be subjected to overall fatigue tests, makes sense to you? This is like sinking whole warships just to test their lifeboats!
“deceasedweasel?“
Cute, real cute.
Stress, acceleration, and shocks delivered to the landing gear, one way or another, get transferred to the whole plane. Simple physics.
Knowing your history I’m not sure why I’m arguing with you — is your whole point here to nitpick everything that happens within the defense industry, whether there’s a reason to or not? Anybody who had a real grievance would surely not squander their time and reputation quibbling every little thing.
Part I :
To the poster “indecentweasel” :
.….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….….…
You wrote: “Cute, real cute. Stress, acceleration, and shocks delivered to the landing gear, one way or another, get transferred to the whole plane.”
Then why is it only a mock-up, maybe even without engines, fuel, arms (maximum payload!) and avionics?
(Continued)
Part II :
You wrote: “Knowing your history I’m not sure why I’m arguing with you — is your whole point here to nitpick everything that happens within the defense industry, whether there’s a reason to or not? Anybody who had a real grievance would surely not squander their time and reputation quibbling every little thing.”
Ask me for a list of everything that I admire or recommend in the modern weapons world and I’ll give it to you (preferrably in another thread, not here and now), but don’t expect everything to be U.S. American-made.
Plus: Unlike for example Defense Web-sites, who have to entertain us CONSTANTLY with new stuff (for which I don’t envy them…), I sincerely don’t feel the need to replace effective (including old and very old) weapons by new, untested ones, just for fashion’s or the Economy’s sake. I’m 100 % immune to publicity and Propaganda. My criteria to judge military organizations, fixed installations, means of transports, arms and ammunitions (but not wars) are 99 % technical and pragmatic. (But I thought that you “knew my history” already…)
Okay. Would actually be interested in seeing your list of weapon systems you like — it seemed to me, for what it was worth, that the best plane for a drop test would be one fully loaded with all features. I think it’s damn important to pick apart BS, but it seems like there are a lot huger problems than drop-testing carrier-based aircraft.
There’s no point in damaging non-structural parts if you can just replace them with ballast.
Thank you! Finally we’re getting some answers! See, I would’ve figured you’d want damage data on all possible components.