Week 22 - June 4 to 11

And there goes the seniors. Yesterday (saturday 10th) was the 10B graduation party. With the seniors gone, we are getting ourselves ready to welcome the new (11B) class and assume our new "senior class" status.
Apart from that, nothing really new.  We still have a busy flying schedule. Propulsion demo, long-stat demo, and T-38 FQ demo are over, but we still have LCO, departure, lat-dir C12 demo, long-stat and lat-dir T-38 data, and maybe a couple others I'm forgetting.
 Next week, we may have a brief for the T-38 HQ demo.
Which brings me to last week's quizz : FQ, or flying qualities, refers to the dynamics of the aircraft alone. HQ, or hqndling qualities, refer to the characteristics  of the aircarft + the pilot. In other word, to assess FQ, we just "excite" the natural modes of the aircraft, using maneuvers such as steady handing sideslip, doublets, ... For HQ, we have to define tasks such as : keep the target within 1 mrad of the center of your visor, and then evaluate how easy it is to perform that task. All right, did I got it right Mr Twisdale ??
Last week, we also began our flight control system (FCS) project. Using Matlab, we are designing a longitudinal FCS to improve the handling qualities of the learjet.
Next week ,we will have a new class : desgin of experiment, and I'm not sure what this is all about.

Also, at the end of next week will be our much needed 2 weeks break.
I won't be writing anything here until after we come back, so that will be on sunday, 10th of July.

Week 20 and 21 - May 23 to June 3

Two weeks ago was memorial day, hence a very welcome 4 day WE. the week before that has been extremely busy. We suddenly found out that we really had to get all the pieces of our oral presentation  for the performance phase together (remember, some months ago, I told you that we were divided in three data groups to collect test data on our aircraft performances). But at the same time, we had to prepare the first of our TMP meeting. And we also realized that, while we had neglected it for almost a month, the first of the flying quality data rides were upon us. Imagine having to manage meetings with three different groups (perf, FQ, TMP) for almost simultaneous deadlines, in a 4 days week, with still flights, classes, reports like the HU16 checkride written report....to do.
I know, we should have know better and get better organized, and maybe do some of that in advance.
Well, by some sort of miracle, everything got done in time and we were able to enjoy the memorial WE.
Last week, we had our oral presentations, at least for the T-38 and F-16 groups (the C12 group has been postponed to next friday). We also finished the "preparation for FQ testing" class, which began the week before. Thisnew class was a medley of many very short classes. Among them : parameters estimation, ground vibration testing, taxi testing, ASE testing, first flight, enveloppe expension, filters and anti-aliasing, simulation use in flight test, aerodynamic model validation, and so on. On the flying side, almost everybody is now done with the C12 long-stat demo and the propulsion demo. T-38 dynamic FQ demo is half way through, and we had our first long-stat data rides in the T-38. Some of the FTE had the opportunity to do the departure demo in the F-16 : put some ballast in the back of the F-16, climb away from the ground, pull hard on the stick to override the AOA (angle of attack) limiter, and here you are, tumbling out of the sky in a very uncontrolled fashion.
Next week will be week 48 for the seniors, meaning : graduation ! After that, we'll be seniors
On the academic side, we will begin the flight control system (FCS) project with Mr Twisdale, and keep flying as much as we can (C12 lat-dir demo, T-38 dynamic demo, T-38 HQ demo, T-38 stall demo, F-16 departure demo, T-38 FQ data rides, F-16 LCO -limit cycle oscillations- demo with the control room, and so on).
By the way, quick quizz : what is the difference between FQ (flying qualities) and HQ (handling qualities) ?
Answer next week.