The Ames Research Center (ARC), also known as NASA Ames, is a major NASA research center at Moffett Federal Airfield in California's Silicon Valley. It was founded in 1939 as the second National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) laboratory. That agency was dissolved and its assets and personnel transferred to the newly created National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1, 1958. NASA Ames is named in honor of Joseph Sweetman Ames, a physicist and one of the founding members of NACA. At last estimate NASA Ames had over US$3 billion in capital equipment, 2,300 research personnel and a US$860 million annual budget.
A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they react to applications of flight controls, the effects of other aircraft systems, and how the aircraft reacts to external factors such as air density, turbulence, wind shear, cloud, precipitation, etc. Flight simulation is used for a variety of reasons, including flight training, the design and development of the aircraft itself, and research into aircraft characteristics and control handling qualities.
In fluid dynamics, a stall is a reduction in the lift coefficient generated by a foil as angle of attack exceeds its critical value. The critical angle of attack is typically about 15°, but it may vary significantly depending on the fluid, foil – including its shape, size, and finish – and Reynolds number.
The NASA Neil A. Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) is an aeronautical research center operated by NASA. Its primary campus is located inside Edwards Air Force Base in California and is considered NASA's premier site for aeronautical research. AFRC operates some of the most advanced aircraft in the world and is known for many aviation firsts, including supporting the first crewed airplane to exceed the speed of sound in level flight, highest speed by a crewed, powered aircraft, the first pure digital fly-by-wire aircraft, and many others. AFRC operates a second site next to Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, California, known as Building 703, once the former Rockwell International/North American Aviation production facility. There, AFRC houses and operates several of NASA's Science Mission Directorate aircraft including SOFIA, a DC-8 Flying Laboratory, a Gulfstream C-20A UAVSAR and ER-2 High Altitude Platform. As of 2023, Bradley Flick is the center's director.
Robert Rowe Gilruth was an American aerospace engineer and an aviation/space pioneer who was the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, later renamed the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.
Flight training is a course of study used when learning to pilot an aircraft. The overall purpose of primary and intermediate flight training is the acquisition and honing of basic airmanship skills.
A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.
Robert T. Jones,, was an American aerodynamicist and aeronautical engineer for NACA and later NASA. He was known at NASA as "one of the premier aeronautical engineers of the twentieth century".
The Boeing X-48 is an American experimental unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) built to investigate the characteristics of blended wing body (BWB) aircraft. Boeing designed the X-48 and two examples were built by Cranfield Aerospace in the UK. Boeing began flight testing the X-48B version for NASA in 2007. The X-48B was later modified into the X-48C version, which was flight tested from August 2012 to April 2013. Boeing and NASA plan to develop a larger BWB demonstrator.
Pilot certification in the United States is typically required for an individual to act as a pilot-in-command of an aircraft. It is regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT). A pilot may be certified under 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 61 or 14 CFR Part 141. Pilots may also be certified under 14 CFR Part 107 for commercial drone operations.
The Controlled Impact Demonstration was a joint project between NASA and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that intentionally crashed a remotely controlled Boeing 720 aircraft to acquire data and test new technologies to aid passenger and crew survival. The crash required more than four years of preparation by NASA Ames Research Center, Langley Research Center, Dryden Flight Research Center, the FAA, and General Electric. After numerous test runs, the plane was crashed on December 1, 1984. The test went generally according to plan, and produced a large fireball that required more than an hour to extinguish.
Flight testing is a branch of aeronautical engineering that develops specialist equipment required for testing behaviour and systems of aircraft or testing the atmospheric phase of launch vehicles and reusable spacecraft. Instrumentation systems are developed using proprietary transducers and data acquisition systems. Data is sampled during the flight of an aircraft, or atmospheric testing of launch vehicles and reusable spacecraft. This data is validated for accuracy and analyzed to further modify the vehicle design during development, or to validate the design of the vehicle.
A stick pusher is a device installed in some fixed-wing aircraft to prevent the aircraft from entering an aerodynamic stall. Some large fixed-wing aircraft display poor post-stall handling characteristics or are vulnerable to deep stall. To prevent such an aircraft approaching the stall the aircraft designer may install a hydraulic or electro-mechanical device that pushes forward on the elevator control system whenever the aircraft's angle of attack reaches the predetermined value, and then ceases to push when the angle of attack falls sufficiently. A system for this purpose is known as a stick pusher.
The NASA AD-1 is both an aircraft and an associated flight test program conducted between 1979 and 1982 at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards California, which successfully demonstrated an aircraft wing that could be pivoted obliquely from zero to 60 degrees during flight.
Flying qualities is one of the three principal regimes in the science of flight test, which also includes performance and systems. Flying qualities involves the study and evaluation of the stability and control characteristics of an aircraft. They have a critical bearing on the safety of flight and on the ease of controlling an airplane in steady flight and in maneuvers.
The Environmental Research Aircraft and Sensor Technology, or ERAST program was a NASA program to develop cost-effective, slow-flying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that can perform long-duration science missions at altitudes above 60,000 ft (18,000 m). The project included a number of technology development programs conducted by the joint NASA-industry ERAST Alliance. The project was formally terminated in 2003.
U.S. Air Force aeronautical ratings are military aviation skill standards established and awarded by the United States Air Force for commissioned officers participating in "regular and frequent flight", either aerially or in space, in performance of their duties. USAF aeronautical badges, commonly referred to as "wings" from their shape and their historical legacy, are awarded by the Air Force in recognition of degrees of achievement and experience. Officers earning these badges and maintaining their requirements are classified as rated officers and receive additional pay and allowances.
In aeronautics, a canard is a wing configuration in which a small forewing or foreplane is placed forward of the main wing of a fixed-wing aircraft or a weapon. The term "canard" may be used to describe the aircraft itself, the wing configuration, or the foreplane. Canard wings are also extensively used in guided missiles and smart bombs.
In the United States, a Designated Pilot Evaluator (DPE) is a senior pilot who examines applicants for a Pilot Certificate on behalf of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The DPE must check applicants’ qualifications, conduct an oral test of their mental skills and judgment, and perform a practical test in flight.
William H. "Bill" McAvoy was a civilian test pilot in the 1920s and 1930s for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) at the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, Langley Field, Virginia, and in 1940 helped start the flight operations division at the Ames Research Center, California.
