Page 3 - Aerotech News and Review, December 4, 2020

NASA begins with existing air traffic. Vertiports
and
NASA and the FAA intend to collaborate throughout all stages
helipads
of the National Campaign, from planning and scenario validation
flight testing to execution of flight demonstrations. The data and lessons learned were
painted at
from the National Campaign will help inform FAA policies and pro-
Armstrong
cedures that industry will follow to fly these various sized vehicles
campaign for and diverse missions on a daily basis. to support
future flight
The purpose of the National Campaign is to eventually test vehi-
testing
cles and UAM airspace providers from various companies. Another
for the
future airspace focus is determining how cities, airports and overall infrastructure Advanced
Air Mobility
can support this type of passenger transport and cargo delivery.
project’s
This flight-testing series begins in December with a test called
National
mobility the NC Integrated Dry Run Test using a helicopter as a surrogate and vehicle characteristics principal investigator for this project.
Campaign.
UAM to develop a data baseline for future industry partnership
NASA photograph by Ken Ulbrich
flight testing. These flights will ensure a developmental test can be
successfully conducted with a vehicle partner. In early October, the project conducted connectivity and infra-
“The National Campaign is trying to verify the gaps in the cur- structure flight tests with a NASA TG-14 glider aircraft to prepare
Imagine air taxis, drones, cargo transports and package delivery
services working in harmony in the National Airspace System with rent FAA standards that scaling eVTOLs operations can’t yet meet,” for December. In addition to assessing automatic dependent sur-
piloted aircraft. said Starr Ginn, AAM National Campaign lead. “We are putting veillance broadcast connectivity to the cloud and data processing
these vehicles through the FAA standards for operations that cur-
That’s a vision NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility National Cam- rently exist. That is our measuring stick.” system, these flights acted as a familiarization exercise for the test
paign and the Federal Aviation Administration are working to Flight Research Inc. in Mojave, Calif., will provide the Bell OH- pilots who will fly the same routes during the helicopter test. The
achieve. 58C Kiowa helicopter for the series of tests where FAA and Flight team also painted a vertiport and helipads at Armstrong to help
Over the next decade, the National Campaign will be research- Research Inc. test pilots will fly different maneuvers to act as a understand the future infrastructure needs.
ing, executing flight demonstrations, and establishing partnerships “surrogate” UAM. Moving into December this series of helicopter testing will kick
for urban air mobility vehicles, or electric powered vertical takeoff The data collected from the three series of flight tests at NASA’s things off for the project and allow for the next building blocks
and landing vehicles in order to safely enable eventual integration
Armstrong Flight Research Center in California will be looking of the National Campaign, the Developmental Test in 2021 and
at overall challenges the urban environment will present for fu- NC-1 in 2022.
ture vehicles. Included in this analysis are vehicle characteristics, The Developmental Test with partner Joby Aviation will include
the interactions with a third-party airspace service provider, wind activities to prepare for NC-1 such as designing flight scenarios
conditions, flight path angles, heliports, vertiports, current FAA for the participants to fly, exercising range deployment and data
tools, and navigation systems. This flight test series will continue collection protocols.
into early 2021.
“The dry run is NASA testing our flight test infrastructure which For NC-1, industry partners will focus on demonstrating inte-
consists of range safety, instrumentation, airspace integration and grated operations through flight activities with vehicles and third-
data collection,” Ginn said. “As the NASA subsystems mature, they party airspace service providers at various locations in the national
will be tested at different phases of the dry run series where the final airspace system around the country.
test in March will test the full end-to-end system.” The integrated operations will allow collection of data from both
The project describes the process as “anchor and evolve” – the the vehicle and airspace service providers as the aircraft performs
helicopter represents the anchor of current FAA standards required approaches and departures in a number of conditions. In addition,
for helicopters to fly today. Testing with industry will then evolve these demonstrations will enable communities and local govern-
from these standards to mimic what an eVTOL will need to safely ments to further understand these operations through assessment
Flight Research Inc. photograph fly. of the noise footprint of these new vehicles.
This Bell OH-58C Kiowa helicopter is owned by Flight Research During the flight testing, test pilots will be flying the helicopter in This project includes members from three NASA aeronautics
Inc. in Mojave, Calif. It is scheduled to fly at NASA’s Armstrong ways based on how the project thinks eVTOLs will fly in the future. centers including Armstrong and Ames Research Center in Cali-
Flight Research Center in California during the Advanced Air This includes flying terminal operations with representative real-
Mobility project’s National Campaign’s NC Integrated Dry Run Test time eVTOL flight plans and trajectories while testing interactions fornia and Langley Research Center in Virginia with leadership by
in December 2020. The helicopter will act as a surrogate UAM for with a third-party airspace service provider. NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
the project to baseline a flight test plan and anchor current FAA “The industry and world will see we are not creating something NASA’s vision for Advanced Air Mobility is to help create safe,
standards to understand how future industry partnership flight sustainable, accessible, and affordable aviation for a number of uses
testing needs to evolve. new; we are evolving standards so urban air mobility can become a
viable market,” said Dave Webber, FAA research flight test engineer at the local and regional level.
Aviation Week honors Northrop Grumman

PALMDALE, Calif.—Northrop Northrop Grumman’s IAL plays a
Grumman is being recognized for revo- significant role in the company’s ap-
lutionizing the production of military proach to producing military aircraft,
aircraft through human ingenuity and while addressing the customer’s vision
advanced digital tooling technology for progress and innovation to build the
within its F-35 Integrated Assembly next generation aircraft. The company
Line in Palmdale, Calif. recently delivered its 700th center fu-
Aviation Week honored Northrop
Grumman with their 63rd Annual selage in August 2020.
Laureate Award in Defense Manufac- The advanced manufacturing capa-
turing for increasing its center fuselage bilities of the IAL use digital tools to
production from six to 15 deliveries produce high-quality center fuselages
per month. The center fuselage is the on time. In June 2019, the IAL began
core structure of the F-35 Lightning II, completing a center fuselage every 30
which forms a significant portion of hours.
the aircraft internal weapons bay and Lockheed Martin is the industry lead
internal fuel capacity. for the F-35 program, and Northrop
“Our integrated assembly line is Grumman plays a key role in the de-
designed and built to manufacture at velopment, modernization, sustainment
a very rapid pace,” said Glenn Masu- and production of the F-35. In addition
kawa, vice president and F-35 program to producing the center fuselage and
manager, Northrop Grumman. “When wing skins for the aircraft, the com-
a facility brings together talent, tech-
nology, and a sense of mission — it’s pany develops, produces and main-
a winning formula for our people, our tains several sensor systems, avionics,
customers and ultimately, the warf- mission systems and mission-planning
ighter. The IAL team continues to push software, pilot and maintainer training Northrop Grumman photograph
boundaries and set the pace of military systems courseware, electronic warfare Northrop Grumman’s Integrated Assembly Line (IAL) features a variety of digital tools such as the automated drilling
system (ADS) that drills and countersinks more than 5,000 precision holes on each F-35 center fuselage. In addition,
aircraft production through our inte- simulation test capability, and low-ob- ADS features its own self-inspection probe powered by data analytics and sensors to measure for precision.
grated digital capabilities.” servable technologies.
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