As an aviation buff, I was interested to see Steve Rubel mention a new blog from Boeing. When I clicked thru to the 777-200LR Flight Test Journal, I found myself sucked into some excellent reading about the 777-200 early morning flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base.
How could I really be expected to resist that?
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Posted by jzawodn at June 01, 2005 10:46 PM
In the entry about the early-morning test flights, she went into detail about how they really push all the corners of the envelope, but also how one bad aspect of being a test pilot is that they have to get up so early, because the winds at Edwards are calm only in the AM. Does that add up? Does the 777 envelope not encompase any un-calm wind? :-)
When you're pushing one variable (or set of variables) as close to the edge as you can, you would want as little variation as possible in all other variables. It's not so much the wind speed as possible fluctuations or turbulence. The more you expect natural conditions to vary, the more room you have to leave between what you're doing and the edge of the flight envelope.
I'd guess that eventually they'd do bad weather tests, but they probably won't push quite so close to the edge of the envelope then.
Ditto Jerermy's comments - another certification test is max cross-wind landings ... needless to say, you need wind for this ... but ideally a constant breeze so you go right at that limit. BTW, the airlines limits are often less than those certified by the FAA/JAA and the manufacturer as they like to be conservative.
Probably the coolest test that will be done at Edwards is the max rejected takeoff wieght where they'll load 'er up, and then reject a take off, cramming on the brakes - you'll see a nice glow on the wheels and probably have some tire plugs pop. Minimum unstick test will be cool too as you may get to see the tail dragged down the runway - a skid is attached to prevent damage.
Here's hoping they start providing some pictures and video's ... plus commentary from the rest of the test folks.
Hey, Jeremy, looks like you've got a comment spammer copy&pasting a couple lines out of an earlier comment (mine) just above (http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/004731.html#comment-17870)
