Blackboxes in all modes, a survey

Monitoring load experience of individual aircraft

Paper presented at the 17th ICAS Congress, Stockholm, September 1990. The actual service load experience of aircraft may differ appreciably from design assumptions. The necessity to monitor service loads is generally recognized now for military aircraft. This paper starts with a general review of the overall life management procedure commonly...

A measurement system for production flight tests of new aircraft

Today there is an increasing pressure on the fast delivery of a newly manufactured aircraft and on the strict guarding of its performance figures. It is therefore essential to reduce the necessary time between completion of the new aircraft and the moment of deliverance to an airline. This means that production flight testing time must be...

Prediction of fatigue crack growth rates under variable loading using a simple crack closure model

A model for the prediction of growth rates of fatigue cracks in aluminium alloys subjected to service loading conditions is presented. The model is based on an approximate description of the crack opening behaviour and was applied successfully in an analysis of effects of crack growth acceleration and retardation observed experimentally under...

Re-assessment of service life by comparative specimen tests

The paper starts with a general discussion on various aspects of life re-assessment. Specific attention is paid to the possibility of re-assesgrnent by means of comparative fatigue tests on specimens. As an illustration of this method, the paper gives a description of the life-re-assessment procedures applied by the Royal Netherlands Airforce...

Measurement of radiation patterns of aircraft antennas in non-steady flight

Instationary methods in measuring radiation patterns of aircraft antennas are described.

IRAS on-board software

The infra Red Astronomical Satellite IRAS will be laimched in February I98I for a mission of one year duration. The purpose of the mission is to produce a full sky catalogue in the infrared waveband. The IRAS satellite will be equipped with an on-board computer system to control the satellite and to execute the measurements necessary to fulfil...