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Aeronautical Facilities Assessing the National Plan for Aeronautical Ground Test Facilities (1994) / Chapter Skim
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6 Additional Considerations and Future Directions
Pages 41-50

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From page 41...
... The NFS emphasizes the importance of operating costs by making them one of the three key parameters used to characterize the proposed new low speed and transonic wind tunnels. The ASEB agrees that operating cost is an important characteristic of any facility involved in the development of commercial 4 products, because facility usage is likely to be a strong function of user costs in a highly competitive business such as the commercial aeronautics industry.
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From page 42...
... assume that final design and construction of the proposed low speed and transonic wind tunnels are completed by a single prime contractor.
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From page 43...
... Recommendation 6-2: The government should select a facility management structure that minimizes cost, schedule, and programmatic risk. ACQUISITION STRATEGY In developing its baseline cost and schedule estimates for constructing new low speed and transonic wind tunnels, the NFS Task Group on Aeronautical R&D Facilities assumed that the tunnels would be built using normal government procurement practices.
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From page 44...
... Finding 6-4: For facilities such as the proposed low speed and transonic wind tunnels, which will require large technical staffs and huge amounts of energy, selection of a less-than-optimum site will degrade the efficiency and increase the cost of facility construction and operation, particularly if power availability restricts wind tunnel operating hours. Recommendation 6-4: If a decision is made to build the proposed" tunnels, the site selection process should proceed in a timely fashion.
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From page 45...
... The NFS report concluded that improvements in aircraft cruise performance, which would result from testing in a new transonic wind tunnel, have greater leverage on aircraft operating costs than high lift performance during take-off and climb, which is tied to low speed wind tunnel testing. This encourages a development sequence for the two tunnels that favors the transonic tunnel.
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From page 46...
... Nonetheless, the kinds of facilities mentioned above are not discussed in this report because they are outside the study scope that was agreed upon by NASA and the National Research Council. Finding 6-6: The National Facilities Study and this National Research Council study have not analyzed requirements for many types of important aeronautical test facilities, such as vertical flow spin tunnels, rotorcraft whir} towers, computational facilities, and flight test facilities.
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From page 47...
... The report's number three recommendation emphasized this point by calling for annual reviews of current and projected facility weaknesses relative to the requirements of vehicle development programs. Six years later, a different unit of the National Research Council formed a committee that included none of the participants in the 1986 study.25 This new study evaluated the ground test facilities at Arnold Engineering Development Center.
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From page 48...
... Furthermore, the need for long-range planning of facility needs is a recurrent theme in past studies of aeronautical ground test facilities. Assigning the responsibility to study future requirements and conduct longrange planning to a permanently established body would provide greater continuity than the current process of relying on intermittent, ad hoc committees.
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From page 49...
... 1992. Future Aerospace Ground Test Facility Requirements for the Arnold Engineering Development Center.
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Key Terms

  • test facilities
  • wind tunnel
  • transonic wind
  • ground test
  • low speed

  • nfs report
  • site selection
  • pricing policy
  • aeronautical ground
  • aeronautics industry

  • nfs task
  • engineering development
  • facilities study
  • national facilities
  • test facility

  • development testing
  • operating costs
  • arnold engineering
  • future requirements
  • tunnel facilities

  • proposed low
  • space engineering
  • proposed subsonic
  • super collider
  • engineering board

  • transonic facility
  • aseb agrees
  • amortized cost
  • flight test
  • capitalization costs


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