Testing Talk
“The testbed will be the most advanced airborne
data collection and analysis system ever produced”
AEROSPACETESTINGINTERNATIONAL.COM // DECEMBER 2019 61
through preliminary and critical design reviews is
expected to take around a year. The actual
modifications, bringing the systems online and ground
and flight testing then happen the year after. Human is
aware it is a tight schedule.
“Bolting a fifth engine onto an aircraft is not trivial,”
he says. “When you look at the support systems like the
fuel and electrical systems, it’s very complicated to do it
safely. We have to worry about rotor burst, modern
engine control systems that are not native to the 747.
“There are a lot of new things that have to be
integrated. This is not a small airplane and it’s going to
be very challenging.”
A further challenge is the data acquisition system,
which has to be future-proofed to be as advanced as the
engines it is testing. Human says, “These modern Rolls-
Royce engines are extremely data intensive – they are
called the intelligent engine – with terabytes of data
coming off them. The engines being tested will be very
advanced.
“The testbed will be the most advanced airborne data
collection and analysis system ever-produced.”
To meet the demanding schedule and technical
challenges, the company is expanding at Moses Lake
Flight Test Center, where it has already
invested around US$20 million. The
Rolls-Royce deal is enabling further
expansion at the site. “We have already
started building an additional wide-body
70,000ft2 hangar, big enough to house a
777X-10 with the wing tips down. The
hangar will be occupied by September
2020,” says Human.
OTHER BUSINESS
Human is speaking to me about the Rolls-
Royce deal on the company’s busy stand
at the National Business Aviation
Associations annual exhibition. The
company’s presence here is evidence of
the broad mix of business the company
engages in. Most of the work is on Part 25
aircraft, larger business jets. “A lot the
business jet OEMs are customers, as are
the Tier Ones, companies like Rolls-
Royce,” says Human. “There is a lot of
innovation at the business jet sector level,
more so than at the commercial level.”
2
AeroTEC’s clients initially approach
the company with a product concept,
which can be at different levels of
maturity. “The first task is to assess if the
product is certifiable. We take it through
verification and validation. We define all
the regulatory, customer, manufacturing
or marketing requirements it needs –
from the aircraft level down to the
component level. We then work out what
evidence is needed to meet those
requirements,” says Human.
A component could for example need
a DO160 quality test or bench test in the
laboratory. An example job at the system
level might mean developing a test rig. At
the aircraft level it could mean flight
testing. As well as test results, evidence
could be in the form of CFD
(Computational Fluid Dynamics) or FEA
(Finite Element Analysis) simulation or
wind tunnel work.
From this information AeroTEC
produces an actionable roadmap to
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