BAE Systems last week said major milestones were been achieved on the Nimrod MRA4 program with the first production aircraft, PA04, being powered up for the first time and two development aircraft completing tests, events that together indicate good progress towards meeting the planned 2010 in-service date.
MRA4 development aircraft PA01 and PA02 completed Airfield Performance Trials at Istres in France. Using Europe’s longest runway, ten weeks of trials saw extensive performance information gathered, BAE said.
“The trials have been extremely successful, with the aircraft and demonstrating excellent reliability throughout,” Steve Timms, Nimrod MRA4 managing director said. “The fact we were able to operate the aircraft so successfully overseas shows the growing maturity of the MRA4 platform. Indeed, over one two week period, PA01 achieved 25 flights, a new record in the flight test program,” he added.
As electrical power coursed through the new production aircraft, test engineers worked through the test procedure without a glitch, BAE said.
A high level of build maturity is needed for power to be applied. The aircraft is currently 93 per cent complete, and the successful ‘power-on’ will allow the remainder to be completed, the company added.
Further tests and checks will be conducted before the vast array of computers, systems and sensors are installed and the aircraft powered up again.
Key elements of the development aircraft trials included:
Long distance taxi runs of up to 6.8 miles and brakeless decelerations.
A series of acceleration – stop tests at different combinations of weights and speeds to measure the aircraft’s performance. These included runs at 125 knots with the aircraft at the maximum take off mass and braking hard to assess the effect on brakes and tires.
Refining take-off technique and measuring the speeds and distances involved.
Testing to determine the minimum speed from which a take-off can be safely continued in the event of an engine failure during take-off. These tests also measured the effect of such an engine loss on the pilot’s ability to maintain safe directional control on the runway.
Assessing how the aircraft performs with the aircraft trim not correctly configured for take-off.
“We’ve now completed around 400 flights on the three development aircraft with more than 1300 hours flown,” Timms said. “Qualification of the aircraft systems is almost complete.”