Experimental aircraft model F-35 Lightning II wins from the use of equipment HBM
Company BAE Systems has used data acquisition equipment HBM to validate operation of the system Instrumentation for flight testing of the F-35 Lightning II, multirole strike fighter unique concept. Usually testing of a data collection system of modern military aircraft is a key task performed using a private system for flight testing.
The multi-role strike fighter involves the actual installation of the data collection system of the aircraft just after its delivery in Fort worth, Texas, USA.
This means that the company BAE Systems in Samlesbury, UK must put in place a system to check the health of all involved sensors and the respective cable connections of the aircraft at the production stage. This approach gives them the confidence that after delivery of sections of the aircraft (aft fuselage, vertical and horizontal tail feathers) for which the company is responsible, the entire system will work accordingly.
Mike Reuck, leading engineer of the production program for system Instrumentation for flight testing, explains: "Using a measuring amplifier MGCplus from HBM and the software catman®Professional for collecting and analyzing the data, we are able to carry out all the tests easily and accurately". MGCplus and related equipment housed in a mobile cart, allowing the team BAE Systems to quickly move it from aircraft to aircraft, thereby reducing the setup time and the test.
Applying equipment HBM, BAE Systems has the opportunity clearly to demonstrate that all Instrumentation for flight tests are working properly, and issue tracking action report that all pre-sale data may be verified if necessary. The equipment was used to collect data from different sensors such as strain gages, pressure sensors and accelerometers. After consulting with HBM, BAE Systems settled on a system consisting of 48 channels of strain gauge inputs, 16 channels with voltage inputs for the connection of accelerometers and 8 channels temperature inputs for connection of PT100 thermocouples.
Reuk, said: "We chose HBM's equipment because it meets our requirements. The HBM equipment is fully configurable and can be reprogrammed in a very short time, it has a very powerful software package (catman®Professional) that allow us to analyze and export data quickly and in various formats".
The F-35 Lightning II consists of a fully finished modular sections for Assembly in Fort worth. All systems are installed and are functional testing before final Assembly.
