NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration

NASA's F-15B Research Testbed aircraft is refueled by a U.S. Air Force KC-135 tanker during a Rake Airflow Gage Experiment flight. The small airflow gage protrudes from the fixture under the F-15B. (NASA photo/Jim Ross) NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center recently conducted a flight test of an airflow-measurement device mounted underneath its F-15B research aircraft in the Rake Airflow Gage Experiment. The device involves a cruciform array or rake composed of conical probes that are used for measuring airflow parameters – airspeed, angle of attack and sideslip – at nine specific locations underneath the F-15B. The rake was attached to a boom-cylinder test device that was mounted to NASA Dryden's Propulsion Flight Test Fixture six-component force balance.

The purpose of the flight was to quantify the flow-field at the nine separate locations that correspond to the aerodynamic interface plane of a planned follow-on experiment called the Channeled Centerbody Inlet Experiment. That experiment is scheduled to be flight-tested in 2009.