NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

F-15B Advanced Control Technology for Integrated Vehicles (ACTIVE) In 1993 Dryden Flight Research Center acquired the first F-15B (two-seat) aircraft built, following it’s career with McDonnell Douglas and the U.S. Air Force. By that time the aircraft had already undergone considerable modification, including the addition of canards and a pair of “pitch-yaw balance beam nozzles” (PYBBN) for thrust vectoring. The exhaust nozzles deflected as much as 20 degrees in a 360 degree arc.

Initial work at Dryden continued the earlier programs begun with McDonnell Douglas, Pratt & Whitney (maker of the thrust vectoring engines) and the U.S. Air Force. But Dryden engineers also used the aircraft as part of a larger thrust vectoring research project that incorporated an F-18 as well as the X-31 and HiMAT. The F-15 ACTIVE eventually served as a testbed aircraft for a variety of programs over its life at Dryden, including Intelligent Flight Controls Systems (IFCS) and Lift and Nozzle Change Effects on Tail Shock (LANCETS). F-15 # 837 was retired in 2009.