2009 Annual Report - NASA Airborne Science Program

FY09 was a busy year for NASA’s WB-57s. In FY09,
the two WB-57s flew a total of 849.6 hours, split almost
equally between the two aircraft.
The WB-57 did not fly any Airborne Science missions
this year, but time was devoted to mission planning for
upcoming Airborne Science flights. The MACPEX mission
is currently planned for May-June of 2010 and will
carry a suite of approximately 21 instruments. Instrument
selection began in December of 2009.
The gross weight increase project, which began near the
beginning of FY08, made great progress this year and
will be completed in the first quarter of FY10. The goal
is to increase the allowable take-off weight to 72,000 lbs,
an increase of 9,000 lbs, or 14% over the existing weight.
In parallel to the gross weight increase project, the superpods
project was worked to allow the WB-57 to fly ER-2
superpods on the mounts that were previously used for
J-60 engines, just outboard of the main WB-57 TF-33
engines. Each superpod assembly on the will be able to
accommodate 400 pounds of payload in the forebody
and an additional 175 pounds in the midbody.
The addition of the superpod capability will enable the
Airborne Science Program to fly selected payloads on
either the ER-2 or WB-57 aircraft with no modification.
The increased gross weight provides increased payload
carrying capability, and increased fuel capacity in a variety
of aircraft configurations. Aircraft range and endurance
penalties due to payload weight will be reduced or eliminated
for all configurations.
In February 2009, the President signed the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 into law, $1.6
million of which will go towards the remanufacture of
ailerons for the WB-57. This is timely because currently
there is no source of spare or replacement ailerons for
the WB-57 aircraft. The aileron is a control surface
located on the trailing edge of the wing that controls
the aircraft in the roll axis. If the ailerons on either of
NASA’s WB-57 aircraft fail or are damaged, the aircraft
down time required for repair would be unacceptable
from an operations and schedule perspective. A similar
delay to phased maintenance would result if an unacceptable
condition (crack, corrosion, etc.) were to be
found on the aileron during inspection.
A three-phase approach was taken, with phase zero being
paid for with non-ARRA funds to get the project started
as soon as possible. Phase zero includes the engineering
evaluation of spare ailerons, and the engineering for
both the honeycomb panels and the trim tabs. Phase
NASA’s
WB-57
one includes the engineering for the leading edge assemblies
and the procurement and manufacturing of
the honeycomb panels and trim tabs. Phase two will
include the leading edge procurement and manufacturing
and the final assembly of the ailerons. The
program is scheduled to be completed by the end of
2010.
Planned for early 2010 is a series of test flights for
a new Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) instrument,
the High-Altitude Imaging Wind and Rain
Profiler (HIWRAP). The principle investigator is
Gerald Heymsfield from NASA-GSFC. HIWRAP
will be installed on a 6-foot pallet on the WB-57.
Since the HIWRAP instrument will only take up
a small fraction of the carrying capability of the
WB-57, two payloads will piggyback on the HI-
WRAP flights. The Hurricane Imaging Radiometer
(HIRAD) from NASA-MSFC will measure ocean
surface wind speeds. The Diode Laser Hygrometer
(DLH), built by Glenn Diskin at NASA-LaRC is also
scheduled to fly with HIWRAP. DLH testing began
during the NOVICE mission in 2008, but was not
completed at that time.
Details on the WB-57’s, their capabilities, and points
of contact can be found at: http://jsc-aircraft-ops.
jsc.nasa.gov/wb57/.
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