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Description of Driving Event:

NASA Langley personnel successfully completed for end users a series of shakedown tests for a new dynamic stability instrumentation system. The system replaces a 25-year-old electromechanical analog instrumentation system that is obsolete. The new system is the only one of its kind in the U.S. and required 5 man years of effort for its development. It uses state of the art digital signal processors to acquire balance force and moment data; to compute, display, and plot static and dynamic aerodynamic damping coefficients; and to compute and display spectral information. All of this information is now provided in real-time during wind-on tunnel conditions. A National Aerospace Plane configuration test techniques demonstrator was tested at the unitary plan wind tunnel repeating identical tunnel conditions from a test conducted in 1990 using the old system.

Data was taken at two different mach numbers and over several different angles of attack. The new system reproduced the previous data with less observed drift and scatter. NASA Langley is the only research enter in the U.S. currently conducting dynamic stability research.

Personnel involved in developing this system are: Dr. Ping Tcheng, Dr. John Tripp, Douglas Wong, Tommy Jordan, Taumi Daniels, and David Hare.