RE: The 757’s womb
Here’s another testbed. From the Milnet website –
WASHINGTON (AFPN) — Boeing is using an unusual-looking aircraft to flight-test the highly advanced, integrated avionics developed for the Air Force’s F-22 Raptor.
The F-22 Flying Test Bed, a modified Boeing 757, offers several benefits to the development program, said Capt. Adam Kalb, a Boeing F-22 program integrator.
“Since the F-22 avionics (aircraft) won’t be available for flight test until later this year, the flying test bed gives Boeing a chance to test the avionics software under actual flight conditions long before it is ever installed in the Raptor,” he said.
The test bed reduces risk, as well as future flight-testing hours, by enabling extensive in-flight testing, evaluation and troubleshooting, said Boeing officials.
According to a Boeing spokesman, there is enough room on the aircraft for up to 30 software engineers and technicians, who can evaluate the avionics, identify anomalies and, in some cases, address these anomalies in real time.
“This flying laboratory allows Boeing to solve problems long before the avionics and software fly in the F-22,” Kalb said. “The FTB saves taxpayer dollars because it is much more costly to find and fix problems later once the avionics and software are installed in the actual aircraft.”
The test avionics are operated from a simulated F-22 cockpit installed in the flying test bed cabin. The cockpit has primary and secondary F-22 displays, as well as a throttle and stick.
Additional modifications to the 757 included installing an F-22 forward fuselage section, housing the F-22 radar, to the nose section of the plane and installing a sensor wing on the aircraft’s crown, immediately behind the flight deck. Communication, navigation and identification sensors were mounted directly on the sensor wing, designed to simulate the sensor positioning found in the F-22’s wings, he said.
Boeing began testing the F-22’s sophisticated avionics aboard the 757 in March 1999. To date, they have completed more than 15,000 hours of avionics software testing in the avionics integration lab and 420 hours of testing on the F-22 Flying Test Bed.
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