777-200LR Flight Test Journal: Archives

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30 September 2005

Measuring it all

Richard Lamarre, lead instrumentation engineer on WD001

Luidel Bernitt, lead instrumentation engineer on WD002

The heart of what the Validation Instrumentation group does in flight testing the 777-200LR is to take measurements - sometimes in the tens of thousands - on all parts and systems of the airplane.

We measure practically everything; pressures, temperatures, positions, accelerations, loads, flows, video, electrical and digital buses. We start with measurement specifications that tell us what needs to be measured, the measurement range, the sample rate and the accuracy of each measurement.

After receiving the specifications, we make drawings and diagrams, as engineers do, which eventually go to a flight test manufacturing engineering planning group, where they become detailed plans to build and install the test parts. Next, the flight test manufacturing group uses those plans to install the test parts in the airplane. Then, with the help of manufacturing, we have to do a rigorous functional test of every measurement. As the program continues, we maintain the instrumentation every day.

The very last part of the program is refurbishment, where we work with manufacturing to take everything out and restore the airplane to its pristine shape and deliver it to the customer. So we are involved at the very beginning with design and go all the way through to the end.

We're involved in a lot of detail work, too. We design sensor installations all over the airplane. All of these sensors need wiring, and the wiring needs to be supported and go through bulkheads and ribs as it gets out to the wings, engines, tail, and down to the landing gear. We have to design access provisions for all of that wiring. For larger test programs there can be many miles of "orange" test wire routed throughout the airplane.

Once it all gets into the main cabin, the wiring is connected to racks which contain equipment for signal conditioning, multiplexing, power, communications, tape recording, video, engine monitoring, gross weight and center-of-gravity and data analysis and monitoring.

The flight test instrumentation can vary a lot between airplanes. There's even a huge difference between WD001 and WD002, the two 777-200LR Worldliners. Whenever the airplanes fly, instrumentation engineers are onboard. It's almost a never-ending job. When the airplane lands after a test flight, we actually begin preparing for the next day. We start reloading the data systems with new databases and repairing things that were broken in flight, and later begin to preflight the airplane and make sure everything is running. We cover about 20 hours worth of time a day.

Other flight test teams also report instrumentation problems. We troubleshoot the sensors, wiring, signal conditioning and the entire circuit from end to end to see what's broken. Usually sensors or something else fails every night. Don't forget some test flights can be pretty dramatic, with buffeting encountered during stalls, windup turns, zero or negative-Gs, performance landings and brake testing. Obviously we need a lot of spare parts. We carry a bunch of spare transducers and have a full inventory; almost anything you'd want. In the field we have to keep flying every day. We take truck loads of support equipment with us for testing at remote locations like Edwards Air Force Base, Calif.

It's amazing to look back to the start of the 200LR flight test plan - almost two full years ago. That's how long it takes to get ready. We started planning 23 months ago for WD001, and our first flight was just this past March. It's a pretty massive undertaking. Coming to the end feels like a weight being lifted from our shoulders little by little. However, when one test program ends, another begins.

28 September 2005

Running the wind station

Daniel Downey, radio services technical staff, wind station operator

Robert Snyder, radio services technical staff, wind station operator

Roger Klinger, data systems and support lead

The wind station collects and reports all kinds of weather data during testing - wind speed and direction, temperature, barometric pressure and humidity. It's pretty straightforward: We set up the station next to a runway where the airplane is testing systems or conditions like auto-lands, runway work, ground effects penetration, crosswind-landing and tailwind takeoff.

We don't forecast the weather, we report it. The flight test crew works with the meteorologist to determine where they need to go. Once they decide, we go along to prove they met the target conditions. Engineering will say the airplane can meet certain Boeing specifications, we prove that it does.

Generally, we look for two things: limits and specific wind conditions. Limits refer to the maximum amount of wind you can have. For example, initial airworthiness runway testing needs something like a five-knot wind or a ten-know wind limit.

For other tests we need specific winds, like for crosswind landings or tailwind takeoffs that need a more precise amount of wind. We may look for a 23-knot crosswind. The wind station proves the crew got the wind it needed to certify the airplane under those conditions. We literally can go to the ends of the earth to find the right wind conditions for flight tests, like to Iceland, Newfoundland and Australia.

Our team supplies other critical weather data, too. The engine guys need to know humidity and temperature, which affect engine performance. In brake testing, they need to know the direction and speed of the wind, which get figured into the calculations for brake energy. Obviously, a tailwind makes the airplane go faster and a headwind slows it down.

On remote flight test, like at Edwards Air Force Base, we also install radios, supply the frequencies and get base stations set up. Everybody wants a radio in their vehicle. We put them in temporarily so our crews can communicate with the base station, airplane and ground control if they're going to be out driving around the airport.

We're actually in the process of upgrading the wind station. The one we currently use is the crème of 1960s technology, developed in the 1940s. We have photographs from 1963 certifying the original 727 using our wind station. It's not a technical marvel, but it's simple and it works.

We debuted the new wind station on the 777-200LR. It's laptop driven, with electronic sensors and no moving parts. The new system is accurate within 2 percent of a reading, much better than the old one. It's amazing technology. The data loads onto an Excel spreadsheet. If the test director calls and asks about winds at condition, a display shows you the direction, speed, crosswinds and the exact time is synchronized to GPS. It's all recorded at between one and 10 samples per second.

We will carry two of the new stations; one and a spare. It doesn't do you a lot of good to get to Iceland and discover your one wind station doesn't work.

22 September 2005

Iceland via Ireland: All in a day's work for flight test

John Corrigan, flight test operations lead

Caitlin Connolly, flight test engineer, Auto Flight group

Sean Russell, flight test analysis engineer

Jasper Corleis, flight test director, 777-200LR

Logistical challenges are nothing new to the flight test program. We fly all over the world to find the right conditions to test certification requirements for the 777-200LR. Sometimes, our ability to adapt to changing conditions gets tested along with the airplane. That's what happened in August when our team spent a lot of unplanned time in Shannon, Ireland, on what was meant to be an auto-land wind testing trip to Iceland.

Iceland's airport in Keflavik offers a test environment that is unique in the world. It has runways running in four directions, all equipped with Instrument Landing Systems (ILS). The runway configuration, combined with Iceland's notoriously severe weather, means we can usually test requirements for cross, tail and headwinds in one place, sometimes in the same day.

But Iceland is as unpredictable as it is unique. The first sign of trouble on our auto-land testing trip came the afternoon before our scheduled departure on Aug. 19. The travel office told us there were no hotel rooms available in Iceland, thanks to a movie, directed by Clint Eastwood that is being filmed there and a very busy tourist season.

What do we do? The trip is planned, and the 30-person crew thinks we're going to Iceland. The closest place that would work as a base of operations for the Iceland testing was Shannon, Ireland. We contacted a fixed-base operator - in the middle of the night, Ireland time - and asked if he could find us hotel rooms, cars and a place to park and support the 200LR.

He worked through the night and sure enough - satisfied all of our requests. They freed up hotel rooms and we had a place to park the airplane. We left Seattle and arrived at the Shannon hotels around 3 a.m. Factoring in crew-rest requirements, we couldn't start testing until the afternoon.

On-site logistics were complicated. We had to ferry the airplane and crew from Ireland to Iceland and back every day. It's a four-hour round-trip flight. We had to land, drop off mechanics, test support crew and equipment, conduct the testing, pick up everyone and everything, return to Shannon and put the plane to bed. That only left us three to four hours a day to test before dark set in at Iceland.

We followed that schedule for two days and fortunately got enough data to certify the airplane for auto-lands in crosswinds, but not for tailwinds or headwinds. Just that quick, the weather changed and the winds stopped blowing. So we packed up and headed home Aug. 22. During the return flight, our pilot continued to monitor the Iceland forecast and found that the winds were due to pick up again in a couple days and blow even harder. That's all we needed to hear; we did a big u-turn over Greenland and headed back to Iceland. We had to ask our Irish friends to accommodate us again, and they came through. They bent over backwards to help The Boeing Company make this possible.

We returned to Iceland and got all the headwinds and tailwinds testing done. We even retested some crosswinds. It was a complete success. We finally flew back to Seattle on Aug. 26. Trips like this mean greater responsibility for everybody, but we work closely together and there's a lot of trust among team members. That's a large part of why we're successful when the winds are up. The whole time we also must stay focused on safety. That's prime in our discussions of every test condition. It's still No. 1; getting the testing done is a distant second.

20 September 2005

Future looks quiet

Boeing Commercial Airplanes: Belur Shivashankara, Eric Nesbitt, Bill Herkes, Stefan Uellenberg and Ron Olsen

Charlotte Whitfield and Mehdi Khorrami, NASA

Steve Petersen, General Electric

Hwa Kwan and Jeff Moe, Goodrich Corp.

Rob Stoker, Boeing Phantom Works

As we mentioned last time, the longer-term technology research we've been undertaking this past summer won't find its way onto a production airplane for 3-5 years. Initially on the 787 and the 747 Advanced.

The future technology we tested in Glasgow, Montana, part of the noise reduction program called Quiet Technology Demonstrator (QTD) 2, brings together partners General Electric (GE), Goodrich and NASA. We've been testing new technology focused on several of the more prominent sources of airplane noise on and around the engines and landing gear.

Our partners each have specific areas of research and development. Goodrich is working on the nacelle inlet, or casing that wraps around the front end of a jet engine, and the landing gear toboggan fairing. The engine nacelle inlet is key to controlling and constraining the inlet noise generated by the propulsion system.

GE researches engines, of course, and noise-reduction affects of newly designed chevrons, the zigzag pattern at the back of engines and nacelles.

The NASA quiet aircraft technology project has two main goals: cut community noise in half by 2007, relative to 1997 baseline, and in half again after that. Their program's airframe system noise reduction component deals with landing gear and the interaction of the propulsion system with the airframe in terms of noise. So they're involved with Boeing in the chevron development program.

With the nacelle inlet, Goodrich fabricated a one-piece inner-barrel liner, which incorporates all of the acoustic treatment forward of GE's fan. When you think about it, fabricating something out of one piece should give you savings in both weight and cost, in addition to better acoustic performance. Also as part of the inlet, Goodrich fabricated a nacelle lip liner, which is the acoustic panel that replaces a traditionally hard-wall leading edge of the nacelle. These two technologies make almost the entire nacelle inlet inner surface sound-absorbent. This substantially reduces engine noise inside the cabin and outside the airplane.

In collaboration and under contract with NASA, Goodrich also fabricated a toboggan-shaped faring, or windshield, that fits in between the wheels and reduces noise from air rushing over the landing gear axles and brake system.

The QTD-2 is showing us how Boeing and GE's new chevron designs are reducing engine noise inside the rear of the cabin and on the ground. The serrated design produces a better mix of the engine's exhaust gas and air that passes through and around the nacelle. A better mix reduces the exhaust noise that hits the rear of the fuselage, meaning quieter take-offs for passengers and the surrounding community.

QTD-2 was a perfect mechanism to work together and accelerate the noise-reduction technology development, even though commercial application is still years away. A flight test brings exposure and added emphasis to getting things done more quickly than would otherwise be possible. A lot of what is going on here is the development of new tools and prediction methods that enable us to design and pick apart what's happening in the total picture of the airplane.

The new tools will enable us to design new engine and airplane configurations. That, in turn, means we will be able to lay out a map of future airplanes and future engine designs that can make airplane community noise a non-issue. That's part of our vision. We see this technology making a difference on the 787, 747 Advanced, next-generation single-aisle, and all new generations of aircraft from here forward.

14 September 2005

Shhh...quiet please

Boeing Commercial Airplanes: Belur Shivashankara, Eric Nesbitt, Bill Herkes, Stefan Uellenberg and Ron Olsen

Charlotte Whitfield and Mehdi Khorrami, NASA

Steve Petersen, General Electric

Hwa Kwan and Jeff Moe, Goodrich Corp.

Rob Stoker, Boeing Phantom Works

August was an extraordinary month for Flight Test, even by Boeing standards. Several significant flight test programs were running at the same time, including the two 777-200LRs - WD001 and WD002 - which have been chronicled in this journal.

Flight Test also is sometimes asked to support long-term technology research that won't find its way onto a production airplane for 3-5 years, or longer. That's what happened this summer. With the 777-200LRs in the home stretch to certification, let's look at Flight Test's involvement with long-term technology research that one day will make a big difference to our airline customers.

Using a 777-300ER made available to us by All Nippon Airways, we worked with several key partners to test future technology that can substantially reduce airplane noise on landings and take-offs, a big issue the public and airline passengers have with air travel. The 777 is a good platform because the airplane operates with extremely efficient and quiet engines and uses the most advanced noise reduction technology available.

The noise reduction test program is called Quiet Technology Demonstrator (QTD) 2. General Electric, Goodrich and NASA came to Boeing's remote airfield in Glasgow, Mont., to test technology that targets engines and landing gear, the most prominent airplane noise producers. It will find its first commercial use several years down the road on the 787 and the 747 Advanced programs.

Reducing landing and take-off noise is important because there are places that our airplanes fly - especially in Europe and Japan - where noise regulations get tougher all the time. Already many local community noise regulations are more stringent than current FAA noise certification requirements. Most of our airplanes already meet even tougher international noise standards that take effect next year. However, we need to keep finding new and better ways to make our airplanes quieter and more efficient.

In this journal entry we'll look at the testing itself. In our next entry we'll look closer at specific technology that can substantially reduce airplane noise inside and outside the cabin. We conduct two broad categories of noise measurements: interior or cabin noise, which is what passengers hear; and community noise, which refers to people on the ground who hear the airplane.

Typically we do interior noise measurements at climb-out and cruise conditions. There are two basic sets of instrumentations; side-body microphones that measure the noise field on the fuselage's exterior, paired with interior microphones. Inside the cabin, microphones are mounted in the seats roughly at passenger head locations. By comparing inside and outside data, we can determine the attenuation that's experienced as the sound enters the cabin. This enables more effective cabin insulation.

For community noise tests, we have more than 600 microphones on the ground that measure the noise the airplane generates when it does simulated approaches and takeoffs. The airplane actually never touches ground in the flybys, but it simulates approach and take-off conditions.

We have single microphones that measure the level of noise hitting the ground, plus microphone arrays that process hundreds of microphones at the same time and generate maps of noise-source locations. Boeing has fine-tuned that technology to where we can determine if the noise source is coming out of the engine's front or back, the landing gear or maybe off of a flap.

We use the microphones in a technique that's most commonly called "acoustic camera." An analogy will help explain: If you throw a rock in a pond, the waves go out and hit the sides of the pond, each at a slightly different time. Even if the pond has angles, you can move backward from where the wave hits to its point of origin, which is where the rock hit the water. If you have multiple rocks it gets more difficult.

But that's essentially what we do. We have multiple sources of sound on the airplane and computers allow us to back out where each noise comes from. We can make the calculations in just about real-time. Within six minutes after the airplane flies by the microphones, we have a map of the noise sources.

The Montana testing will give us an enormous amount of data in isolating noise origins on the airplane. We're planning static engine testing next summer that will be even more precise in identifying individual noise contributors, such as with the inlets and fan exhaust.

09 September 2005

Home sweet home

They lined up like they were waiting for a carnival ride. They came from all over Boeing's Everett facility and they represented almost every job family. Some of them had worked on parts of it, or helped design parts of it or watched it zoom into the sky on its maiden flight.

All of them had read about it and heard about it, and they all wanted to see it, touch it and experience it.

The line for Tuesday's employee tour of WD002, the second of the 777-200LR flight test aircraft, formed shortly after the doors opened at 11 a.m. Although it never got very long, it also never seemed to get any shorter despite the steady stream of employees through the front door and out the back.

"It was great to be able to come out and see it in person," said Greg Malland, an engineering manager for 747/767/777 Interiors. "My team was vital in developing the Starry Skies technology. We've received some really positive responses from leadership, employees and customers about the Starry Skies installation. I was impressed with this airplane interior, and I know my team will be as well. They were all planning on coming out here for the tour."

Employees on the 777 team received invitations to the event, but all employees were welcome, and many took advantage of the sunny weather to wander to the apron of the 40-26 building where the airplane was on display. The inside of the plane featured display areas as well as examples of first-class, business-class and coach seating sections - just as it was configured for display at the Paris Air Show and on its 24-city, 61-day "Going the Distance" world tour.

Brian Lennon, who specializes in ceilings in his job with Design Engineering for Payloads, spent most of his time in the plane looking up.

"I was really impressed with the star-lighting in the ceilings and the mood lighting. That is a really nice option for customers," he said. "Some of the contours they have are really nice. They make the inside look really large and expansive."

Robin Nichols, a contract employee supporting the Engineering weight department, stopped by to see one thing: the roominess of the cabin.

"I flew first class last year for the first time ever on a trip to Las Vegas and now I'm spoiled," she said. "I came out here thinking it would look like any other jet, but I was wrong, wrong, wrong. There's just so much room ... it's like riding on a ship."

By 4 p.m., more than 2,400 employees had checked out the custom interior and expansive cabin of Boeing's current showpiece airliner - and all of them walked away quite proud to have been a part of it.

06 September 2005

Say cheese

Deb Hanford, Flight Test photographer

Joe Parke, Flight Test photographer

We're not exactly fashion photographers, but we spend an awful lot of time taking pictures of "super models" doing some pretty amazing runway work.

The two of us make up Boeing's Flight Test Photography department, and we think we have the best jobs in the company - most of the time. Some doubt creeps into our minds on those occasions when we have to be on the runway at Edwards Air Force Base at 4 a.m., or when we have to climb inside a fuel tank or an engine.

While many of you have seen examples of our work - in the form of press-release photos, first-flight videos or if you have been reading this journal on a regular basis - the vast majority of our work is seen by a very limited number of people, or no one at all.

That's because a lot of our work deals with the technical side of Flight Test, and the images we take would be of little interest to anyone except those who request it.

Sometimes, the images we produce would seem downright boring to most people. For example, we might be asked to video tape the reaction of a certain part under specific flight conditions. Well, if the desired reaction is no reaction at all, and if the test is successful, the video will show this certain part doing nothing. Pretty boring to most people, but the engineers who designed the part will do cartwheels in the aisles when they see the video.

We also get to do our share of exciting stuff, especially during test programs like the one going on now with the 777-200LR Worldliner. We accompany planes to places like Edwards, where they test things like minimum flying velocity, abusive takeoffs and engine failures. Those are very dramatic. On occasion, our jobs have taken us to some exotic locations - including New Zealand and South America - but that doesn't happen very often.

For the most part, the videos and photos we capture are used for data analysis and serve as visual records so if the FAA or anyone else wants to know how a certain test was instrumented, we can pull out a photo and show them. Visual data is considered backup data to the digital data, but on those rare occasions when digital data fails, the visual data becomes primary.

Between the two of us, we have 43 years of Boeing experience, 38 of those in Flight Test. That is a real benefit because of the technical aspects of our job. We've gained a lot of intricate knowledge about airplane systems, and when a lot of technical jargon is being tossed around in pre-flight meetings, we understand most of it. If there is something we don't understand, we always ask. We get only one chance during these tests. They are very expensive and if the test is a success, they won't do it again just because we didn't get our photo.

We're referred to as Flight Test photographers, but that only tells part of the story. We're really a full-service organization when it comes to photo and video, including printing and editing. For instance, if someone wants a DVD with video highlights from tests being conducted at Edwards, we can put it together. We can even provide full darkroom and motion picture services, although the evolution of digital photography and video has made that more or less obsolete.

We also take a lot of pride in our response times. When we're asked to be on the runway in 13 minutes to capture something, we try to be there in 12 - because we have the best jobs in the company.