Flight Testing of Laminar Flow Materials and Systems to Gain Experience with Respect to Operational Aspects

Abstract

This paper, written as a collaborative venture between Aerospace Systems and Technologies, DLR Braunschweig and SAAB decribes two separate but complementary flight tests, carried out within the European HYLTEC programme, that have the objective of widening the knowledge and experience relating to systems and in-service aspects of Hybrid Laminar Flow. The first part of the paper describes a flight experience trial on a SAS Commuter SAAB 2000 aircraft aimed at gathering data and experience relating to materials for porous suction surfaces and the way that these will behave under in-service conditions. The second test, on a Dornier 228 aircraft, investigates combinations of systems that potentially provide to the requirements for a production Hybrid Laminar Flow aircraft. Both experiments are on-going at the time of writing this paper, which describes the preparation, experience and results, available at the time of compilation (March 2000).