X-31 Crash Explained. The Chain Of Events Triggered By A Component | Rockwell Messerschmitt Aircraft
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- Опубліковано 8 лис 2022
- The Rockwell Messerschmitt Bölkow Blohm X-31 was an experimental jet fighter designed to test fighter thrust vectoring technology.
The X-31 was an extraordinary airplane, capable of jaw dropping maneuvers.
One of the two aircraft crashed for a series of events, explained in the video by people involved in the project. It was caused by a new component and a series of miscommunications that led to enhanced oversight over procedures.
It was designed and built by Rockwell and Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB), as part of a joint US and German Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability program to provide additional control authority in pitch and yaw, for significantly more maneuverability than most conventional fighters. An advanced flight control system provided controlled flight at high angles of attack where conventional aircraft would stall or lose control. Two aircraft were built, of which only one has survived.
Two X-31 Enhanced Fighter Maneuverability demonstrators were test-flown during the early 1990s at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, CA, to obtain data on control in the post-stall flight regime. The X-31 program demonstrated the value of thrust vectoring - directing engine exhaust flow - coupled with advanced flight control systems, to provide controlled flight at very high angles of attack.
During the program's initial phase of operations at Rockwell International's Palmdale facility, pilots flew the aircraft on 108 test missions. They achieved thrust vectoring in flight and expanded the post-stall envelope to 40 degrees angle of attack before flight operations were moved to NASA Dryden in February 1992 at the request of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
The first X-31 aircraft was lost in an accident Jan. 19, 1995. The pilot, Karl Heinz-Lang, ejected safely before the aircraft crashed in the desert just north of Edwards. Investigation indicated the crash resulted from ice accretion in the nose boom, which was not heated. The ice accumulation reduced the internal diameter of the data probe, which in turn led to incorrect data reaching flight computers. The result was an uncontrollable aircraft. Following the pilot's ejection, the X-31's flight computers fought to regain control of the aircraft, which alternated between erratic and momentarily controlled flight until it struck the ground.
The X-31 design was essentially an all-new airframe design, although it borrowed heavily on design elements and sometimes actual parts of previous production, prototype, and conceptual aircraft designs, including the British Aerospace Experimental Airplane Programme (choice of wing type with canards, plus underfuselage intake), the German TKF-90 (wing planform concepts and underfuselage intake), F/A-18 Hornet (forebody, including cockpit, ejection seat, and canopy; electrical generators), F-16 Fighting Falcon (landing gear, fuel pump, rudder pedals, nosewheel tires, and emergency power unit), F-16XL (leading-edge flap drives), V-22 Osprey (control surface actuators), Cessna Citation (main landing gear's wheels and brakes), F-20 Tigershark (hydrazine emergency air-start system, later replaced) and B-1 Lancer (spindles from its control vanes used for the canards). This was done on purpose, so that development time and risk would be reduced by using flight-qualified components. To reduce the cost of tooling for a production run of only two aircraft, Rockwell developed the "fly-away tooling" concept (perhaps the most successful spinoff of the program), whereby 15 fuselage frames were manufactured via CNC, tied together with a holding fixture, and attached to the factory floor with survey equipment. That assembly then became the tooling for the plane, which was built around it, thus "flying away" with its own tooling.
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 13.21 m (43 ft 4 in)
Wingspan: 7.26 m (23 ft 10 in)
Height: 4.44 m (14 ft 7 in)
Wing area: 21.02 m2 (226.3 sq ft)
Airfoil: Rockwell 5.5%
Empty weight: 5,175 kg (11,409 lb)
Gross weight: 14,600 kg (32,187 lb)
Max takeoff weight: 15,935 kg (35,131 lb)
Powerplant: 1 × General Electric F404-GE-400 turbofan engine, 71 kN (16,000 lbf) thrust
Performance
Maximum speed: 1,449 km/h (900 mph, 782 kn)
Maximum speed: Mach 1.28
Service ceiling: 12,200 m (40,000 ft)
Rate of climb: 218 m/s (42,900 ft/min)
Wing loading: 64.5 kg/m2 (13.2 lb/sq ft)
Footage Courtesy Of NASA (www.nasa.gov)
#X31 #airplanes #aircrash - Наука та технологія
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well thats just stupid,,ice has been bringing down planes & boats,, for centuries,,havnt you fixed that yet,,the faster you go,,the more ice forms,,it aint rocket science..duh..
A very interesting video. I grew up in Palmdale, and had family working at Rockwell at the time, so this plane piqued my interest. It's sad to see that a breakdown in communication caused the loss of the aircraft. Thankfully it was the last planned flight for that airframe, so there wasn't too much scientific loss in the crash. Also glad to see the pilot got out, of course!
I worked with X-31 2 and removed the ejection seat and signed my name on the bulkhead per her decomission from VX-31
👍😯
What's embarrassing is that it's rate of climb was ONLY 42,900 ft/min.
I think the F-15 was less than 30,000 ft/min 🙂A good friend of mine established a world record for a piston engine a while back:time to climb to 6,000 m (19,685 ft) - 6'37". Almost 43,000 ft/min. is really crazy. I read that the Eurofighter Typhoon has a climb rate in excess of 62,000 ft/min 😮😬
Very good story guys, well edited 👏. Also the background music was just right 👍. All in all, a good job well done, I totally enjoyed it and learnt a lot. ✌️🇬🇧
Why wasn’t the boom heated? Computer controlled aircraft need reliable air data to control the aircraft.
5:43 explains it.
@@otm646 no it doesn't.
What’s with the Lurch voice ? Sounds like the Adams family .
It reminds me of George Takei with a sore throat
Sounds like George Tekie Star Trek
@@RidgeR5 George Takei with a sore throat after smoking 20 packs of smokes
You rang?
Fantastic...
As is well established , accidents on long distance trips mostly happens in the very last segments of said trip, when one lowers one's guard.........
Wow! The gee forces on that plane and it didn't come apart . . . wow.
That is a wonderful insight. How many G's would you expect this aircraft to endure before it crashed while whipping and flipping all over the place? Even after the crash, it still looked like an aircraft spread out on the ground. It's a good thing the pilot got out when he did. He might have passed out if he stayed any longer trying to go into revision mode.
I dont think the G forces were too high (and if high not sustained for sure), because the speed was quite low.
Blame it on tiny sensors all you like. But it's invariably caused because aircraft are no longer flown by men, but by MINDLESS COMPUTERS!
This is ridiculous
FBW planes are much safer, and human errors are a the biggest hazard by far
What is amazing is that 75 years ago some of the countries who were involved in developing this aircraft were at full scale war. I always marvel at videos when 75 years ago adversaries are now companions in technology. We can also argue the opposite is true.
Even more interesting if you think about that in the space program context, as the time elapsed was just a few years after the war. I think all allies got their share of technology and collaborators. As far as I know we are talking about thousands of engineers, spies, mathematicians, designers, scientist, etc. as far as I know, both sides were quite aware of many (not all) of those collaborations as well. Interesting dynamics...
what made it necessary to disable pitot heat?
Why have a chase pilot at all if he doesn`t or can`t hear communications.He might as well have been in the peanut gallery.
Boy this sounds awfully similar to two Boeing 757 accidents that happened back in the '90s with pitotubes being blocked or taped over
Which itself still wouldn't have crashed those planes had they been flown by men and not computers.
That all knew that issue could happen that's not why this crashed. That problem snuck up quietly laziness was the cause not lack of knowledge.
The chase plane is there for a reason, as soon as the pilot in the chase plane was unable to sync his speed with the X-31 it should have set off alarm bells and a RTB.
Glad to see the Germans still at the leading edge of flight and engine technologies not that long ago, I wonder what they're up to now?
We gave away most of our huge experience we had in the 90es. AFAIK there is not much left. It's a shame.
@@hiha2108 It makes one wonder how it all came undone.
Looks like they designed it and then realised it didn't have wings so stuck them on bottom afterwards
We expect that an accident involving a state-of-the-art, experimental aircraft at Edwards will involve hypercomplex issues discovered only at extreme performance.. For anyone not a pilot it might sound that this issue involved some complexity.. it didn't. The issue of an unheated pitot tube is about as basic an issue as can be found, even on the simplest 2 seat ab initio training aircraft at your local grass airfield. When the test pilot stated, "it might not be connected up?" He may well have been asking; 'You only gave me ten minutes of fuel?' The fact that he hadn't been made aware of the system is beyond any belief.
Not to mention the Air France flight 447 tragedy. Again, Pitot tubes and too much reliance on electronics. The price paid there was hundreds of casualties.
They got complacent, f-ed up and lost a plane, not a big deal.
Pilot simply Dropped the 🏀! Then Panicked! Clearly!
Look how long it took that acceptional Aircraft to plumment to the ground! They had essentially intentionally put the plane in those Attitudes using the vectoring prior to that..
"Complacency"
Only takes one electrical solenoid, then...
It's really not like nobody expects this to happen sooner or later in 'cutting edge' design. In fact, in my business we call it the 'bleeding edge' . . . . . it's great day when nobody gets hurt.