A Joined-Wing Flight Experiment

Abstract

This report summarizes several design and analysis studies surrounding the flight test of a 7% geometric scale of a notional high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) variant that targeted the AFRL SensorCraft mission. Established procedures were modified to accommodate low-cost testing with giant-scale radio-controlled technology as an approach to reduce high risk associated with new technologies, such as the joined-wing concept. The flight test vehicle reported here was rigid. The second successful flight ended in deep stall due to under-powered design. Minimal data was extracted from the flight test. Significant experience was gained. This report motivates and describes the next step toward low-cost aeroelastic scaling of joined-wing concepts where geometric non-linear structures is a key component.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA483055

Entities

People

  • Jason C. Bowman
  • Jason Robinson
  • Maxwell Blair
  • William A. Mcclelland

Organizations

  • Air Force Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aerodynamic Configurations
  • Aircraft Equipment
  • Aircraft Industry
  • Aircrafts
  • Airframes
  • Computational Fluid Dynamics
  • Control Systems
  • Engineers
  • Fixed Wing Aircraft
  • Fuselages
  • Measurement
  • Mechanics
  • Nose Wheels
  • Spars
  • Swept Wings
  • Three Dimensional
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Readers

  • Aerodynamics/Aeronautics.
  • Computational Modeling and Simulation
  • Software Engineering