The McDonnell Douglas YC-15 was a prototype developed of the USAF ‘s AMST program in 1972. The competition was the Boeing YC-14.
McDonnell Douglas developed the YC-15 from the Breguet 941s, using extensive wind tunnel testing (for optimum configuration testing) and using Cornell Aeronautical Labs B-26B In-Flight Simulator (for flight control testing).
The aircraft itself is 124.25 feet long, wingspan is 110.36ft, height is 43.30. Max gross weight is 216,680lbs. The interior cargo-box is 47 x 11.8 x 11.4.
Thrust for the YC-15 was provided by the JT8D turbofan (also the DC-9 powerplant) and produced a total thrust of 16,000lbs. The engines were mounted on shallow pylons mounted ahead of the wings leading edge. Thrust reversal was accomplished using so-called “daisy nozzles.” During final approach, with flaps fully extended and facing the engine, the engines provided 54% of the YC-15 lift.
The straight wings consisted of ailerons, double-slotted flaps, leading edge high lift devices (Kruger flaps, etc), and spoilers. The trailing edge devices, flaps and ailerons spanned 75% of the wings trailing edge. The flaps could extend as much as 46 degrees into the downstream. The YC-15 was the first jet powered aircraft to use externally blown flaps (EBF).
YC-15′s EBF
Flight controls consisted of the conventional hydraulic system and a stability and control augmentation system (SCAS). The SCAS was dual channel and 3 axis enabling hands off flight for high angle approaches (tactical approaches) and modes for attitude, altitude and heading.
The YC-15 saw the first use of a heads up display (HUD) system, specifically called the VAM (Visual Approach Monitor). Developed by Sundstrand, the VAM displayed the horizon, flight path scale, airspeed indexer and touchdown point.
Sundstrand’s VAM display
Being essentially a research airplane, the YC-15 did not need to fully conform to MILSPECS. As such it borrowed components from various aircraft, the DC-10 cockpit enclosure, the F-15 fuel pumps, the C-141 stabilizing struts, the A-10UARRSI, the C-5 cargo handling equipment and other parts from 9 other types of airplanes. Cockpit instrumentation used components from 10 different airplanes.
Here’s a cutaway of the YC-14 and YC-15 for comparison:
Part 2 will detail the YC-15s flight test program.
Part 3 will detail the YC-15 technological contributions to the C-17.
John Farley’s A View from the Hover is a long-awaited memoir of sorts from one of the UK’s most experienced test pilots.
John Farley is best known for the first flight of the P.1127 in 1964 while a test pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment. He spent 19 years contributing to the development of the Harrier, retiring as Chief Test Pilot BAe Dunsfold. He then spent five years as Manager of Dunsfold and a further two as Special Operations Manager at BAe Kingston. In 1990 he became the first Western test pilot to fly the MiG-29 fighter. He is currently part of the Farnborough Aircraft team developing the F1 air taxi.
Like most pilot’s memoirs, A View from the Hover starts out with Farley’s first experiences with flying in general. Then goes into his flying at RAE Farnborough and Bedford.
There’s also a chapter detailing Qinetiq’s Harrier VAAC programme. There’s some very detailed descriptions of the aircraft’s flight control system and the contributions the program made to the JSF.
Harrier VAAC
A great of the book is naturally going to detail Farley’s work on the Harrier itself. From the P.1127 to AV-8A testing with the USMC to the Sea Harrier FRS.1 to AV-8B Harrier 2 testing with McDonnell Douglas, and finally to the Sea Harrier FA.2. Overseas sales demonstrations to Spain, Italy, France and India are also discussed.
There’s some interesting discussion of the preparations and certifications needed for a demo flight. Speaking of demo flights other than the Fulcrum demo he flew the other most interesting evaluation was the IAI Lavi. He offers some opinion of how good an aircraft that was. The reader may gain some insight into China’s J-10.
Farley’s thoughts on simulation has this tidbit:
“A few years later, I was standing outside a Lightning (aircraft) simulator waiting my turn for an emergencies check. The game was the same as in the Hunter (aircraft). If you got the drills right you flew on. The pilot was about 3 miles out on a GCA to land and down to one engine having successfully put out a fire on the other. Then the instructor gave him a fire in the remaining engine. The pilot made a textbook Mayday call and said he was ejecting. When you pulled the handle at this point in that simulator, the canopy slid back on rails and the seat went u p a foot or so. Job done. However, nothing happened and the canopy remained closed. Then we heard this awful scream – it was quite chilling. The pilot concerned had failed to remove the seat safety-pin during his strap in checks and found he could not pull the handle. He really thought he was going to die. A bad dose of AMD (awareness of mortal danger) as the psychologists term it.”
Intense and indicative of just how realistic early simulators were.
The later chapters of the book include Farley’s thoughts on general aviation and actually made me think of a discussion I had with a CFI years ago. Farley wondered why GA airplanes don’t have an AoA indexer in much the same manner as fixed wing naval aircraft.
I won’t go into a description of one but here’s what an AoA indexer looks like:
The conclusion of the book gives Farley’s interesting perspective on teaching the fundamentals of aerodynamics which CFIs out there may find useful.
All in all this is a great book. A View from the Hover is a must read for those interested in flight test. However, if you’re an airplane geek and/or a pilot there’s a lot of great material here for you too. On Amazon it’s a bit pricey. I found the paperback for about $35 but it had been sitting on my wishlist for over a year.
*make sure that you head over to xbradtc’s place and click on the Amazon link to purchase (you’re welcome…even if I was banned from the latest “name the plane…lol)
In 1986 the BBC produced this interesting and informative documentary detailing The Empire Test Pilots School class 44 going through training at Boscombe Down in the UK. There are 6 parts each lasting 30 minutes. “Test Pilots” the viewer a good idea of the hard work that goes into becoming a test pilot, as well as the flight test process itself.
There are a LOT of different airplanes here making cameos. Beavers, Tornadoes, Buccaneers, Vikings, Hornets, Blackhawks, way to many to name here so fellow airplane geeks should be well pleased
If you want to learn more there are a few flights test blogs out there that I read:
Mark Jones Jr’s Multiply Leadership . Mark is a graduate of the USAF Test Pilots School and former test pilot in the C-17 Globemaster 3 program.
As I’ve related before in these pages, I am a casual flight-simulation enthusiast. In my youth I was a much more devoted aficionado (if not a particularly skilled one), and I spent many happy hours flying (mostly one-way) virtual sorties into scarily dense integrated air defense networks. But these days, I lack the time and proficiency to survive in that kind of unwelcoming environment, and so I satisfy myself with the prosaic tasks of practicing touch-and-goes, failing at in-flight refueling, and occasionally sparring with computer-controlled enemies at a skill level just low enough to make me the conquering hero. Another oak leaf cluster for my Distinguished Flying Cross? Why thank you, don’t mind if I do, you can paint the MiG silhouette right over there, that’s right Iceman, I am dangerous. (Hey, don’t judge me.)
There I was in the blue F-16, trying to jump a partially-anesthetized, unarmed A-4E in a level turn...and, er, I wind up botching the end game with way too much closure. What looks like a tidy little displacement roll on the tape was really a frenzied attempt to avoid a mid-air collision.
However, it’s interesting after all these years to see how current technology is employed by serious simulator fans who have stuck with the hobby. There are several different layers of simulation complexity. The first is mastering the control and management of your own aircraft, which is a nontrivial exercise in the era of 700+ page “game manuals.” (I am stuck at this level.) The second is basic combat against a computer-controlled aircraft, the so-called “1-v-1″ engagement. This raises the complexity substantially, as weapons systems and tactics and all of the nastiness of an opponent come into play. The third level is multiplying the number of aircraft in play, which adds the element of multi-tasking under stress. And the fourth adds human players into the mix, which increases the chaos by an order of magnitude.
The “fourth-level” organized scenarios that are flown by serious devotees of the hobby are fascinating. While there is plenty to read in the open literature about Basic Fighter Maneuvers, there is not a lot about how a large air battle involving fourth-generation fighters equipped with missiles of the AMRAAM generation would play out tactically (the seminal open-source work on the subject, Robert Shaw’s Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering, was published in 1985). These are the intriguing parts of the mission that Lex could not show us on his helmet-cam — and for good reason, for there lie secrets upon which lives may one day depend.
But within the boundaries of what is publicly known, the experiences of the hardcore simulator crowd provide some fuel for thought. Not so much as a predictive device — but rather, to get the “feel” of the thing, and in particular how tomorrow’s fighter pilot (or UCAV operator) will need to quickly synthesize all kinds of fragmentary information in a very short time to detect, identify, engage, kill, and withdraw. If these games are any indication, it will be confusing, fast, violent, and curiously cerebral.
The Youtube video above is a recording of an air-to-air encounter during a Falcon 4.0 airfield strike, flown by a four-ship of F-16s over a simulated Korean peninsula. (Or, more properly, flown by four civilian hobbyists over the Internet, at least one of whom has melodramatic tastes in background music.) In this setup, they have no airborne radar controller with a God’s-eye view of the battlespace warning them of incoming threats. Instead, they have to rely on their own radar warning equipment, their awareness of each other’s position, and the onboard data networking equipment that allows them to construct a common picture of what’s going on. But they have to work to build that situational awareness, based on little half-second blips and buzzes that pulse on their threat receivers, and there is no time to spare, since modern missiles have the speed and range to kill virtually anything that can be detected, very quickly. Compared to the WWII experience, it seems strangely abstract.
This second video is taken from a mission analysis tape (mimicking the military’s TACTS/ACMI systems, most current flight simulators have some kind of “flight recorder” capability that allows the mission to be carefully dissected afterward — this is an attractive little presentation package called TacView). Here we see some of the consequences of chaos, when an F-15 takes a missile shot — and while his intended target exits the missile envelope, a friendly F-15 wanders into it. With modern fighter aircraft being as agile as they are, and modern missiles having the range, kinematics, and “semi-smart” acquisition mechanics that they do, and everything happening fast fast fast…stuff can happen.
I don’t assert that these commercial entertainment products will predict the outcome of future air battles. (Even assuming that flight simulations get the performance details within the ballpark, I think they still have a platform bias that undermodels operational-strategic capabilities which can change the battlefield fundamentals.) But I do think that they do a more creditable job at capturing the flavor of that battlefield than a lot of other media, which rely too heavily on accounts of past air wars that are receding in relevance.
And if nothing else, these mission accounts are very entertaining for an old computer game player to watch. They can be my wingmen anytime, no I can be theirs. Er. Well, something like that, anyway.
As a pitiable member of that great unwashed class of low beasts who will never have the opportunity to strap on a high-performance jet fighter, I will confess that during weak moments I have been known to seek the assistance of certain…artificial aids, for the purpose of experiencing some small fraction of that godly endeavor. Strictly for recreational purposes, of course. Personal use only, I have a prescription.
"I'm in here...working."
I speak, of course, of computer flight simulation. Several folks in our community have mentioned in another venue that they too have tried on the 3D-accelerated wings of Icarus. (Indeed, I believe that Lex himself was something of an aficionado of X-Plane, during that purgatorial period when he was forced to wallow with the unwinged.) Since we’re all friends here, I thought I would share my sordid tale as a cautionary note.
It all started, innocently enough, as an effort to clean my office. I wanted to separate my “work” computer station (a Mac laptop) from my “gaming” computer station (a PC). In years past I tried various keyboard/monitor switch arrangements that would allow me to flip from work to play, but the result was a hideous tangle of cables around my desk. I wasn’t gaming much, so I was getting twice the mess for none of the benefit. I resolved to unplug my PC and stick it in the closet.
Logitech G940 force-feedback programmable stick and throttle, which replaced my old TM Cougar. I primarily use a software package that simulates the F-16C, and so the "sidestick" arrangement works. Truthfully, although there is an available attachment for a center-stick mount, it's not so easy to climb in and out of the seat, and so I'll probably stick with the sidestick even if I upgrade the software into a different airplane. The 64th Aggressors ballcap is what I use for the TrackIR vector frame, which allows the computer to track my head movements. My SO has prohibited me from upgrading to an HGU-33 helmet.
Then I saw something on a hobbyist site one day — a separate computer seat/gaming station, originally designed for auto racing games, but also well-suited for flight simulations. It was basically a car seat bolted to a heavy metal frame that served as a monitor mount, with configurable extensions for a flight stick, throttle, rudder pedals, keyboard, and mouse. “This is exactly what I need,” I reasoned. “I have a PC I never use that is in the closet along with a lot of other flight-simulation equipment that I also never use. The precise thing that this situation requires is a home cockpit.”
The ugly brown seat covers are authentic GRU-7 ejection seat cushions that I found at an online aircraft parts supplier. The "desk" is an acrylic surface that rests on the frame and is removable. The blue plastic object is an iPad kneeboard, which I bought in a fit of utter madness. (Makes finding checklists much easier though.)
Very unexpectedly, one thing led to another. I have had many entertaining tool-filled hours bolting parts to other parts, tying cable-filled hoses to metal frames, and searching eBay for discarded ejection seat parts. I still am not doing much flight simulation but I do have a rather unique conversation piece in my home office, the exclamatory responses to which vary pretty consistently by gender.
Some photos below (still a work in progress). For those fellow lunatics inclined to do something like this, it takes less space than you’d think. The components are all reconfigurable for different gaming/computing tasks (including, um, work, right). And the chair is actually very comfortable and excellent for napping.
The keyboard and mouse surface is mounted on a swiveling arm that rotates into place. The stick is bungee-corded to a similar platform that swivels in and out to allow easier access to the seat. Once I settle on a hardware configuration, I'll attach the stick more permanently.
Monitor is an old 24" Dell flat panel screen. There are side frame attachments available that permit a triple-monitor arrangement for better peripheral vision. Sound is an old Creative Labs sound card paired with an old, inexpensive speaker system. I have not upgraded any PC hardware yet.
TrackIR 5. This is a little infrared camera that sits on top of the monitor and stares at you. By wearing a hat or headset with a particular arrangement of reflective squares, the TrackIR calculates the precise motion of your head in 3D, and enables the simulation to smoothly change the view in response. The result is an astonishingly natural way to "look around", even within the confines of a 24" monitor.
