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Modular, adjustable: A test plane for any occasion
Looking to make a plane that was manned aerial vehicle airframes for the flights of newly built aircraft.
able to take off and land at airports U.S. Navy and Air Force and is also The additional flight test time has
with shorter runways, in the mid-2000s taking orders for PTERA aircraft from
NASA began experimenting with the universities and companies. given the company the opportunity to
circulation control wing concept. build a performance database of the
Thanks to funding from Armstrong, baseline aircraft, so current and future
Using increased amounts of high- the baseline PTERA aircraft was flown users can compare that data with any
pressure air over the leading and trail- and tested over Georgia on three dif- modifications they’ve made to see
ing edges of the wings, supplied either ferent occasions in 2014, allowing whether the changes are having the
by the jet engines or separate compres- engineers to refine the controller ar- intended impact.
sors, aircraft using this technology chitecture and flight software Alley
have greater lift. That enables them had developed prior to the NASA “PTERA is sitting there with an
to take off and land at a lower speed, contracts. As a result, he was able to open source flight computer so that
permitting a shorter runway. work out some of the “gremlins,” as he you can go in and load up everything
calls them, which show up in early test you need,” Alley says. “In a matter of
To test the innovation, Armstrong a year you can be up and flying.”
Flight Research Center put out a call
in 2006 through the Small Business Area-I Inc. photograph
Innovation Research program for an
unmanned, sub-scale test aircraft that The Prototype-Technology Evaluation Research Aircraft, or PTERA, was flown
could be equipped with such wings. and tested in Georgia skies in 2014. The aircraft, a 10-percent scale model of a
medium-range twinjet airplane, can be used to test any number of aeronautical
Kennesaw, Ga.,-based Area-I Inc., technologies, from advanced control algorithms to avant-garde wing designs.
which specializes in the development
of autonomous aircraft, won the con-
tract and delivered the aircraft to Arm-
strong in 2011.

One plane to rule them all “The unforeseen genius of the air- nautical engineer at Armstrong. For Area-I Inc. graphic
Fortuitously, the aircraft that Area- craft was that we inadvertently de- instance, the PTERA model could be
signed a platform that was reconfigu- used for testing innovative wings made An aircraft with a T-tail empennage in normal flight (top) versus one in a deep
I developed for NASA was highly rable,” says Nick Alley, Area-I’s CEO. of new materials, including shape- stall condition (bottom). One of NASA Langley Research Center’s goals for its
adaptable. So when Armstrong put out “We could, for a minimal amount of memory alloys that can respond to PTERA Generic Modular Aircraft T-Tail, or GMA-TT, is to flight-test stalls and
a call for another research aircraft, this effort, … put a different type of wing temperature changes in order to reduce recovery maneuvers to improve simulators used for pilot training.
time a model akin to a medium-range, on it or do a whole bunch of other drag or maximize control.] And when
narrow-body, twinjet airliner, Area-I things as needed.” Langley Research Center solicited pro-
was awarded funding. posals for a sub-scale airplane with a
The model built for Armstrong is T-tail empennage — a feature that
And when Langley Research Cen- 10 percent the size of its commercial gives aircraft more severe stall char-
ter solicited proposals for a sub-scale counterpart, while Langley’s plane, acteristics — with a rear-engine mount
airplane with a T-tail empennage — a called the PTERA GMA-TT (for Ge- to improve stall recovery, Area-I ap-
feature that gives aircraft more severe neric Modular Aircraft T-Tail), is about plied for and received SBIR funding
stall characteristics — with a rear-en- 16 percent of the full-scale version. A yet again.
gine mount to improve stall recovery, PTERA model costs about $250,000, a
Area-I applied for and received SBIR fraction of the millions needed to buy Knocking out the gremlins
funding yet again. other unmanned model aircraft. NASA isn’t the only agency inter-

The company won both contracts by “We could test a number of other ested in a reconfigurable test aircraft.
reconfiguring its original NASA-fund- wing innovations as well, along with Building on its fruitful work with the
ed, baseline aircraft, which it named assorted sensors and promising algo- space agency, Area-I is developing un-
the Prototype-Technology Evaluation rithms,” says Bruce Cogan, an aero-
Research Aircraft, or PTERA.

Benefield Anechoic Facility hosts first RCAF plane
from the outside world. The chamber is filled with
by Kenji Thuloweit polyurethane and polyethylene pyramids designed Air Force photograph by Kenji Thuloweit
Edwards AFB, Calif. to stop reflections of electromagnetic waves. The
size of the pyramids, which are painted dark blue A Royal Canadian Air Force CC-130J transport plane sits in the Benefield Anechoic Facility May
For the first time ever, a Royal Canadian Air or black, varies depending on the particular fre- 24 undergoing electronic warfare testing. The CC-130J is from 8 Wing located at Canadian Forces
Force plane has entered the Benefield Anechoic quency and test procedure being conducted. Air- Base Trenton, Ontario. The J model has six propellers and can fly faster, higher and farther than
Facility at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. craft systems can be tested and verified that they legacy versions, while carrying heavier loads with better fuel economy.
work properly prior to actual flight test.
A team of engineers, operators and defense sci-
entists from Canada, are wrapping up electronic The isolation from outside interferences en-
warfare testing of an RCAF CC-130J Hercules ables testers to determine the electromagnetic
transport plane. compatibility of the CC-130J’s systems.

Canada is updating its fleet of legacy CC-130H “Our DEWS systems are often programmed
aircraft with the J model, which are the same as and tested in isolation. We do not have a capabil-
the U.S. Air Force C-130Js and used for tactical ity like the BAF, which would allow us to test
airlift of troops and supplies. the systems in an integrated fashion. This pro-
gram allows us to exercise the compete integrated
The team has conducted multiple tests in the suite before the aircraft goes through an expensive
past couple of weeks focusing on the ALR-56M flight trial,” Poliakov said.
radar warning receiver and its integration with the
rest of the Defensive Electronic Warfare Suite and The test team designed all the emitters the BAF
aircraft mission computer. is going to generate around a fictional threat area.

“The BAF is the closest thing to actually fly- “We’ve setup our objectives to simulate a con-
ing the aircraft in an RF threat environment. The tested [radio frequency] environment and we’re
chamber allows us to execute multiple test objec- going to see various early warning, air to air, long-
tives in a controlled-repeatable manner and col- range surface to air, and anti-air artillery threat
lect data to evaluate the radar warning receiver’s systems come up to exercise the full capabilities
technical performance and effectiveness.” said of the radar warning receiver and provide relevant
Emil Poliakov, Canada Department of National experience to the operator in the cockpit.”
Defense, radar warfare engineer.
The electronic warfare data collected during
The BAF, operated by the 772nd Test Squad- this testing will be shared with partner nations as
ron, is the largest anechoic chamber in the world part of an agreement signed last year between the
and can fit pretty much any airplane inside. It pro-
vides a “free space” so electronic warfare tests can See BENEFIELD, Page 7
be conducted without radio frequency interference
Aerotech News and Review June 17, 2016
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