F-35C Lands at Lakehurst For Testing

[popcorn]

[...Good idea. We need a new thread, because three-four years from now, NOBODY is going to be looking for the first carrier landings at Lakehurst../quote]

.....second that emotion!

Actually credit smsgtmac for that quote.. I agree it's a good idea.

[spazsinbad]

'airframe' said: "Hi spaz, AFB from DT, betcha didn't recunize me with my silk scarf and flying goggles..." OK gotcha. My that is a slow forum. More excitement here.

[spazsinbad]

Just because all of the links here: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=26708&p=282536&hilit=Manazir#p282536 appear on this thread I thought that this thread was appropriate for this look at the JBD on a CVN and other Horneto stuff - particularly the use of the towel racks - so maybe it should go on the follow on thread anyway [racks] - you decide. Screenshot is from the video:

JBD CVN Catapult Towel Rack HORNET F/A-18

[SpudmanWP]

I would love to see the overhead view (HOTAS movements) of the F-35C's landing.

[spazsinbad]

Not sure if this is a repost - so apologies - but anyway perhaps LM will read this thread and comply? Seems as though they have thought the SLO MO arrest onboard was useful so anyway.... Here is the superHorny teaser:

Super Hornet FA-18E Control Movements Carrier Landing

[spazsinbad]

Earlier there was concern about the F-35C bumpy catapult ride. Here is a Super Hornet F-18E and screenshot of a right hand on towel rack.

Ely Flight 14 Nov 2012 Guest Blogger ~ Captain Dave Kindley, PMA 265

"...Imagine that you’re sitting on the deck of a carrier, about 50 feet above sea level. It’s the darkest night you’ve ever seen, not even starlight to give some illumination. You’ve just signaled the shooter that you’re ready to go. Your Super Hornet is straining at the holdback fitting, 44,000 pounds of thrust visible as two bars of superheated fury roaring into the jet blast deflector behind you. You’ve got one hand on the throttle, holding it in afterburner. The other holds on to the towel rack handle on the canopy, safely keeping your hand from the stick because the jet knows a cat shot and how to rotate away from the waves.

Then the cat hits you, a mule kick to your back. You’ve already shoved your head back against the seat but you’re pressed harder as you accelerate from a standing start to 150 mph in about 1 ½ seconds. But as soon as it starts, it’s over and you’re airborne and climbing away. Your senses are reeling, and all you see ahead is blackness, no reference at all to up or down. You remind yourself to trust the glowing green symbols in your HUD and you climb away, one adventure behind you, another about to begin....”

Source: http://www.navair.navy.mil/nawcad/index ... ost_id=108[/quote]

SLOW MOTION Catapult Super Hornet F/A-18E

[spazsinbad]

This video is OLD now but relevant to the OLD info on this thread. Towards the end youse'll see the arrest testing at wherever at end of 2012. I'll excerpt these bits and put them in the NEW other thread soonish but soonish like. Hokay?

Found a HIGHER QUALITY Video published one year earlier (as one would expect) so low quality one replaced.

F-35 Year In Review (2012)
Published on Jan 18, 2013 AIRBOYD Credit: Naval Air Systems Command NAVAIR JSF Program

"Highlights of the flight test accomplishments by the Patuxent River F-35 Integrated Test Force in 2012. Includes weapons separations and arrested landings."

[spazsinbad]

These excerpts from video above more relevant here than in newer thread so here goes....

F-35C 2012 ITF Pax River Land Arrest & Steam Cats

[sferrin]

Wish they'd release the 2013 year in review. It's got some good stuff in it.

[spazsinbad]

Yes it is mysterious how these Year In Review Videos from NavAir do not seem to gain traction however the good news is here it is at good quality. We await the 2014 version eh. It seems the videos are published late and overlooked? Anyway it seems we have a pointer to this video somewhere on this forum at about the time it was published in MAY this year..... but anyway... here 'tis again. AND... AGAIN... Earlier: viewtopic.php?f=58&t=13143&p=271028&hilit=Integrated#p271028

F-35 Lightning II Integrated Test Force 2013 Year in Review
Published on May 7, 2014 NAVAIRSYSCOM

"Highlights of the flight test accomplishments by the Patuxent River F-35 Lightning II Integrated Test Force (ITF) in 2013. Video produced by the Pax River ITF Lockheed Martin Multimedia Team."

[spazsinbad]

Searching this thread for 'carpet' revealed for such instances.... so dusting out said carpet is relevant here? Must be fun for SINBAD.

Semi-autonomous aviation controls coming to the fleet
05 Feb 2015 Meghann Myers

"They say the most stressful job in the world is landing on an aircraft carrier at night in rough weather. On Thursday, Navy aviation officials are carrying out another round of tests on a control system that promises to take the edge off that sometimes harrowing experience.

Meanwhile, showgoers at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo in Washington, D.C., got a chance to sit in a faux cockpit and try out the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division’s system.

Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies, or MAGIC CARPET, is already integrated into the F-35Cs that pilots from Air Test and Evaluation Squadron will take for a spin, NAWCAD aerospace engineer Steve Moss told Navy Times on Wednesday.

MAGIC CARPET allows a jet to self-correct its altitude, Moss said, as opposed to the constant pushing and pulling pilots do now to stay on course while approaching a carrier.

“You’re constantly moving the throttles, because a jet’s engine is always lagging,” Moss said. “So you’re doing a three-part power correction: You add the power to go forward, pull power off because it’s always too much, then add power because you’ve overcorrected.”

With the other hand, Moss added, the pilot is steering the jet left or right to line up with the carrier. But with every lateral movement, the plane tilts and loses altitude, so the pilot has to balance every movement with another shot from the throttle.

“It’s very complicated and very hard to do, and hard to keep that currency up,” Moss said. “So you have to keep training for it, keep taking training life off of our jets to do that.”

With MAGIC CARPET, pilots are able to steer the jet to the carrier without losing lift, because self-adjusting flaps in the jet’s wings compensate for any path changes, without having to hit the throttle.

“So let’s have the flight controls do the hard part, do the integration part,” Moss said. “Instead of fixed flaps, raise the flaps up a few degrees so you have authority, so the longitudinal stick is now commanding symmetric flaps.

“You’re not fighting it, you’re just flying,” Moss said.

To make things even easier, the cockpit’s heads-up display show’s the carrier’s relative velocity, taking into account its horizontal movement, to help pilots aim at the flight deck.

The Navy’s F-35Cs come with MAGIC CARPET, Moss said, while the fleet’s F/A-18 Hornets will get an upgrade in the 2017-18 time frame.

The integration will be purposely slow, he added. First-tour pilots won’t be flying with MAGIC CARPET, he said, but second-tour pilots who’ve mastered the old system will upgrade.

But the question is, will they want to? Navy fighter pilots have a notoriously difficult job, and are well known for the pride they take in mastering it.

“Every single pilot that’s flown in this has come in with the hairy eyeball like,’ Are you kidding me? You can’t change this. You can’t change the way we fly the aircraft — it’s supposed to be hard,’ ” Moss said.

Their attitudes quickly changed to, “Why don’t we have this already?” he added."

Source: http://hrana.org/news/2015/02/semi-auto ... the-fleet/

[spazsinbad]

ALL ABOARD! Gentlemen START YOUR ENGINES....

First airborne flights completed for MAGIC CARPET
16 Mar 2015 Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD)

"NAVAL AIR SYSTEMS COMMAND, PATUXENT RIVER, Md. – Recently, engineers and test pilots at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division successfully transitioned the newly-developed F/A-18 flight control software called MAGIC CARPET from the virtual world of the simulator to the blue skies above the Chesapeake Bay.

MAGIC CARPET is an acronym for Maritime Augmented Guidance with Integrated Controls for Carrier Approach and Recovery Precision Enabling Technologies. The software is designed to make landing on an aircraft carrier easier by maintaining a commanded glideslope and angle of attack, giving the pilot the opportunity to focus more attention on maintaining a proper line-up.

On Feb. 6, Navy test pilot Lt. Cmdr. Tyler Hurst flew the first flight in “Salty Dog 222,” an F/A-18F Super Hornet assigned to Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23. On Feb. 11, Navy test pilot Lt. Brent Robinson flew a follow-on test flight to expand the MAGIC CARPET’s flight envelope.

“With the initial set of flights, we were able to confirm that these new flight control laws performed very much in line with our predictions from the simulators,” said Robinson, MAGIC CARPET project officer. “The initial airborne response characteristics observed in both Path and Rate modes with both Full and Half flaps are very encouraging.”

Test pilots from VX-23, working closely with engineers manning the control rooms of the Atlantic Test Ranges, will put the flight control system “through its paces over the next few weeks with myriad of approaches and touch-and-go landings in preparation for the initial shipboard testing,” Robinson said.

The engineering group responsible for developing the flight control software, new heads-up displays, and simulators was encouraged by the first initial flights, which included practice field carrier landings.

“After the first test flights, we needed only minor tweaking of a few feedback gains which showed good correlations with our aerodynamic models and flight response predictions,” said James “Buddy” Denham, a senior engineer in the aeromechanics division at NAVAIR. “We also received very positive feedback on the enhanced heads-up displays, we are now completing much of the off-nominal work, and the initial results and pilot feedback are favorable.”

Test pilots, engineers, and landing signal officers (LSO) from VX-23 will continue to test MAGIC CARPET on F/A-18E/F aircraft through nominal and off-nominal approaches in the coming weeks, leading up to an at-sea testing period scheduled for later this year."

Source: http://www.navair.navy.mil/index.cfm?fu ... ry&id=5864

[neptune]

[quote="spazsinbad...MAGIC CARPET..... giving the pilot the opportunity to focus more attention on maintaining a proper line-up..[/quote]

This is a great enhancement and achievement for Naval Aviators and I am certainly looking forward to when it can be implemented across the board in all carrier a/c including the Dassault Rafale.

No question, great stuff.....but...given this is limited to "tail-hooks" and the dynamics are greatly more involved than the land based a/c requirements. Now that it is a given that Magic Carpet is a goal and/ or a reference, how will it compare/ complement JPALS as implemented by the X-47 and is to be implemented by the JSF and Helos. Do you see these Magic Carpet algorithms being integrated into JPALS, or is JPALS another independent technology that is future oriented and a competitor to Magic Carpet?

To me, an Aviator is a "tail-hook" flyer and automated landings do not mitigate that distinction and ability to ride the seat. Is this great advance with Magic Carpet ( a great thing!) going to be enhanced by the precision of JPALS and provide even better approach and engagement control for the a/c/ aviator; or not?

Unlike the "tail-hook", I have had landings when it was impossible for anyone to tell the instant when the wheels made contact and we landed and quit flying (load shifted off the lift surfaces, onto the gear); different conditions (hydroplaning was involved) and not to digress. Perhaps this is why the Air Force and Army have backed off the JPALS wagon for a while??.

[spazsinbad]

JPALS is an aid to FIND the runway/carrier. Then - because of the precision guidance made available - JPALS can allow an 'auto landing aircraft' (Super Hornet/F-35BorC/X-47B/UCLASS) with / without sentient beings inside, to land on the carrier without other intervention (except in emergency when for example the X-47B could be waved off during a carrier approach when near/in the groove by those few individuals responsible for safety - LSOs / Air Boss). JPALS has been demonstrated in this auto land mode very successfully with the X-47B; whilst JPALS continues to be refined for use by the humans in their respective aircraft. JPALS is much more than just a precision carrier approach I hope is understood. It is effective out to some 200 NM for getting aircraft to the carrier without the JPALS signals being intercepted. Then the closer the aircraft approaches more precision is provided by the JPALS system. JPALS is mostly outside the aircraft (with some enabling tech inside said aircraft).

Conversely MAGIC CARPET is inside the Super Hornet (with some enabling tech outside - I'll guess that will include JPALS when it is available for 'auto landings'). The equivalent in the F-35C is 'Delta Flight Path'. Magic Carpet is moving the aircraft control surfaces in such a way that the pilot is able to concentrate on fewer things during a carrier approach, as has been described a few times now on this thread. Not sure if a RAFALE has the capability to have a 'magic carpet' system installed. [Disclaimer: I'm only interested in F-35s and Super Hornets at this stage of their respective development.]

These computer controlled aircraft have their carrier approach precision made easier to achieve with all these new technologies - both inside and outside their respective aircraft. We saw the precision of the F-35C carrier approaches with unbelievable centreline landings and no.3 wire arrests/no unintentional bolters (however we know that it is likely deliberate off center landings - within limits - may have been tested [not sure on that score - certainly tested ashore as has been noted]). Then the video showing seven centreline landings of the X-47B could only be described as: the same approach repeated seven times! I jest. Hammering the centreline at touch down - aligned fore and aft - is not easy because said line is moving from left to right all the time - no buts or ifs.

[popcorn]

Good explanation Spaz... these tech things tend to get jumbled up so that helps clarify.