UH-60 AIRLOADS FLIGHT PROJECT
The UH-60A Airloads Program's, jointly sponsored by NASA and the U.S. Army, objective was to obtain comprehensive, accurate, documented airloads data over the complete operating limits of the UH-60 rotor system that will have long-term value and timely, widespread accessibility so that the rotorcraft community can increase their understanding of rotor behavior, refine and validate their analysis tools, and design improved rotorcraft. This was accomplished by collecting data from a highly instrumented rotor system. This system had 221 pressure transducers installed on one blade at nine radial stations and another 21 transducers located near the blade leading edge between the radial arrays. In addition blade structural loads, blade motion. control loads, and aircraft states were also measured.
Flight testing was completed in February 1994 after seven months of research testing. Thirty-one research flights were completed accumulating 57 flight hours. An extensive range of flight conditions were flown, including level flight and maneuvers. A portion of the program was flown in cooperation with Langley Research Center to simultaneously measure ground acoustics and blade pressures. In addition, a number of in-flight acoustic tests were flown using the YO-3A aircraft as a measurement platform
Occasional Notes:
Occasional Notes are a series of brief summaries of various aspects of the UH-60A Airloads Program that are reported here prior to publication in more formal reports. Included here are:
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- ON 1999-01: UH-60A Airloads Program (1984-1994)
- ON 1999-02: Data Base Description
- ON 1999-03: Annotated Bibliography
- ON 1999-04: Discrepancies in the Measurement of Aircraft and Rotor Power
- ON 1999-05: Sideslip Anomaly
- ON 1999-05R1: Sideslip Anomaly (Rev. 1)
- ON 2000-01: Airspeed Calibration
- ON 2000-02: Flight 115 Correction
- ON 2001-01: Out-of-Ground Effect Hover Performance of the UH-60A
- ON 2001-02: Counter 8534 Steadiness
- ON 2001-03: Shaft Bending Moment Strain-Gauge Bridge Azimuth Reference
- ON 2001-04: Main Rotor Torque Band-edging on Flight 85
- Aero_Pitch_Mom: Examination of Aerodynamic Pitch Moment
- UH-60A Airloads Catalog 2005, NASA/TM-2005-212827, AFDD/TR-05-003, August 2005
- UH-60A Airloads Catalog Section 9: Ground Acoustic Testing, NASA/TM-2005-212827, AFDD/TR-05-003
- UH-60A Airloads Catalog Section 10: In-Flight Rotorcraft Acoustics Program Testing, NASA/TM-2005-212827, AFDD/TR-05-003
- Technical Note, Journal of the American Helicopter Society, Number 2, Volume 50, pps 211- 213, April 2005
Related Publications:
Bousman, W. G., "A Qualitative Examination of Dynamic Stall from Flight Test Data," Proceedings of the 53rd Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, April-May 1997.
Bousman, W. G., "A Qualitative Examination of Dynamic Stall from Flight Test Data," Paper No. 62, Twenty-third European Rotorcraft Forum, Dresden, Germany, September 1997.
Kufeld, R. M. and Bousman, W. G., "UH-60A Helicopter Rotor Airloads Measured in Flight", The Aeronautical Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society, May 1997.
Kufeld, R. M. and Bousman, W. G., "UH-60A Helicopter Rotor Airloads Measured in Flight," Proceedings of the Twenty-Second European Rotorcraft Forum, Brighton, United Kingdom, September 1996.
Kufeld, R. M. and Bousman, W. G., "High Load Conditions Measured On A UH-60A In Maneuvering Flight," Proceedings of the 51st Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, May 1995.
Kufeld, R. M., Balough, D. L., Cross, J. L., Studebaker, K. L., Jennison, C. D., and Bousman, W. G., "Flight Testing The UH-60A Airloads Aircraft," Proceedings of the 50th Annual Forum of the American Helicopter Society, May 1994.
Kufeld, R. M., Cross, J. L. and Bousman, W. G., "A Survey of Rotor Loads Distribution in Maneuvering Flight," Proceedings of the American Helicopter Society Aeromechanics Specialist Conference, San Francisco, CA, January 1994. Paper No. 2.4.
Cross, J. L., Brilla, J. A., Kufeld, R. M. and Balough, D. L., "Modern Rotor Aerodynamic Limits Survey, Report and Data Survey," NASA TM 4446, October 1993.
Kufeld, R. M. and Loschke, P. S., "UH-60A Airloads Program: Status and Plans," AIAA/AHS/ASEE Aircraft Design System and Operations Meeting, Baltimore, MD, September 1991.
Hamade K. S., Kufeld, R. M., "Modal Analysis of UH-60A Instrumented Rotor Blades," NASA TM 4239, November 1990.
Points of Contact:
Robert Kufeld
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field CA 94035-1000
William Bousman
NASA Ames Research Center
Moffett Field CA 94035-1000