Graham Warwick/ATLANTA
McDONNELL DOUGLAS (MDC) expects to fly the second F-18E Super Hornet by 16 December. Flight testing of the first F-18E is expected to resume shortly after repair of an environmental-control-system bleed door, failure of which caused the 29 November first flight to be cut short.
Project pilot Fred Madenwald says that the 20min first flight indicated that the F-18E/F design goal of providing handling "as good as, or better than that of, the F-18C/D" has been achieved. The aircraft landed with 4,500kg of fuel, "...more than the C/D takes off with", he says, and touched down at 132kt (245km/h), whereas the lighter chase aircraft landed at 146kt.
The E/F is designed to land on a carrier 2,700kg heavier and 10kt slower than the C/D says Madenwald, with the lower, 125kt, landing speed reducing the structure weight required.
High-angle-of-attack (AoA) behaviour has also been improved, he says. Control laws in the fly-by-wire flight-control system have been modified to reduce sideslip and improve roll rates at high AoA. The E/F will be fully manoeuvrable beyond 40¡ AoA, compared to 35¡ for the C/D, he says.
Other changes to improve high-AoA handling include the addition of spoilers on the leading-edge extensions, which act like fore-planes to increase nose-down control authority, and vents in the wing roots, which open to improve airflow over the fins. Madenwald says that these changes will prevent "falling-leaf" departures experienced with F-18s and caused by a lack of nose-down control at aft centre-of-gravity positions.
An important early flight-test goal is to confirm MDC's range projections. Madenwald says that the F-18E/F is designed to have 40% more range than the C/D. MDC will deliver the first two of seven flight-test aircraft, E-1 and E-2, to the NAS Patuxent River, Maryland, test centre in January. The first task will be to gain clearance for aerial refueling, so that extended missions covering several test tasks can be flown.
The first carrier landings are scheduled for November 1996, using the first two-seater, aircraft F-1. Two early operational assessments are also planned in 1997-8.
Source: Flight International
