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Joint Strike Fighter test team puts safety first

09/03/02 - EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (AFPN) -- With planning for the Joint Strike Fighter flight-test program in high gear, experts from the JSF integrated test force here are focusing on the high-tech safety designs the new fighter will offer future aircrews.

Both the Air Force and the Navy will conduct testing on all of the JSF variants, including the Air Force, Navy and Marine versions as well as the foreign version of the aircraft. Once test pilots begin evaluating the JSF, they will be looking at several key features that have been designed specifically for its pilots and ground crews.

The fighter's most unique safety characteristic is its prognostic health management system, which begins working before the aircraft returns from a mission, said Mark Crawford, chief engineer for the JSF here. With this system, the aircraft relays key maintenance information to ground support people who can then assemble the right skills, technical data and aircraft spares needed to quickly return the jet to the air.

Crawford said that if a system, such as the aircraft's radar, were to fail or sustain battle damage, the health management technology would signal an in-flight reconfiguration thus allowing the pilot to link to a wingman's radar system to complete the mission. The reliability and fault-isolation data offered by the system will also help JSF maintenance crews identify when an aircraft is meeting mission and reconfiguration requirements.

"This will lead to reduced maintenance and supply cycle time and will make the most of our logistics resources," said Crawford. "This means more sorties with fewer resources and the ability to do both safely."

The fighter's ground collision avoidance system also has been developed to assist a pilot in a situation where he or she might be task-saturated or temporarily incapacitated. If such a situation arises, the aircraft will automatically maneuver to avoid hitting terrain or obstacles.

The system uses digitally stored databases including one containing terrain representative data to predict when a collision with the ground is imminent, said Crawford. A fly-up is commanded prior to impact signaling the flight controls to execute an automatic fly-up. The mission computer terrain database can be updated flight to flight to support the current mission plan. Pilots will also have the ability to add man-made features to the terrain if needed, said Crawford.

The new fighter also represents a significant step forward in safety of short takeoff and vertical landing, or STOVL, operations as compared to older aircraft such as the British Harrier. The airframe of the Marine version of the JSF has been modified to allow for STOVL operations and is slated to replace the Marine's current fleet of AV-8B Harrier jump jets.

The JSF flight control system will take inputs from the pilot and through its sophisticated software algorithms will determine the safest and most effective method to accomplish the pilot's desired task. The computer system will also correct for environmental and other external influences on the aircraft including wind and ship movement to safely land the F-35 on a carrier deck.

"In the older legacy STOVL systems the pilots had to account for all of these influences, which significantly drove up their workload and led to a higher mishap rate over the lifecycle of those aircraft," Crawford said. "During the concept demonstration phase, F-35 pilots were extremely impressed with the X-35's reduced workload and commented on the relative ease of landing vertically as compared to with what they were used to in the past."

The team is relying on lessons learned from the fighter's concept demonstration phase, which ended last October with the Defense Department's decision to safely develop the JSF, according to Joe Dowden, director of the JSF test force here.

In all, the joint JSF flight-test program will conduct an estimated 11,000 flight-test hours before turning the aircraft over to those who will fly it into combat. The first test aircraft is expected to touch down here for developmental testing in 2005. An additional 18 are expected to arrive once the program moves into operational testing in 2010.

Once the JSF moves into production, the Air Force will be its largest customer, with current plans to purchase about 2000 of the conventional takeoff and landing version of the aircraft. The Air Force version is designed primarily for air-to-ground combat and to replace the F-16 Fighting Falcon and A-10 Thunderbolt and to complement the F-22 Raptor.