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NASA Meatball C-17 Globemaster III Photo Collection banner
 
C-17 Globemaster III

California Polytechnic State University student Abagail Liddle sits on Rogers Dry Lake and uses a laptop to collect noise data of a C-17's landing approaches.

 
Photo Number: EC05-0203-14
Photo Date: September 10, 2005
 
Formats: 640x603 JPEG Image (210 KBytes)
1280x1205 JPEG Image (985 KBytes)
3000x2825 JPEG Image (6181 KBytes)
 
Photo
Description:
California Polytechnic State University student Abagail Liddle sits on Rogers Dry Lake and uses a laptop to collect noise data of a C-17's landing approaches.
 
Project
Description:
Thirteen aerospace engineering students from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo spent a Saturday in mid-September 2005 on a lake -- not sailing but helping NASA study aircraft takeoff and landing noise. Trading the classroom for on-site research on Rogers Dry Lake in California's Mojave Desert, each student was armed with a laptop computer and other equipment to participate in the C-17 Noise Mitigation Flight Test.

NASA, the United States Air Force and Northrop Grumman Corp. partnered for the test flights. NASA researchers from Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif., led the collaborative effort. The C-17 flight experiment was sponsored by the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate's Vehicle Systems Program (VSP).

Seventeen microphones, covering approximately 15 square miles, were positioned on the dry lakebed to record the noise footprint of the Air Force Flight Test Center's C-17 Globemaster III as it attempted various landing approaches. In addition to conventional straight-in landing profiles, a new type of simultaneous and non-interfering (SNI) landing profile was flown. This new approach is similar to a descending spiral over the landing site.

Research participants, using laptops connected to GPS receivers and equipped with third-generation sound cards, collected data from the flights to validate a modeling tool for predicting SNI approach noise footprints. The flights also tested the hypothesis that employing this landing approach could help keep aircraft noise within the airport land use zone.

 
NASA Photo by: Tom Tschida
 
Keywords: C-17 Noise Mitigation Flight Test, Globemaster III, landing approach, simultaneous and non-interfering landing profile, SNI, Vehicle Systems Program, VSP, Extreme Short Takeoff and Landing, ESTOL, aerospace engineering students, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, microphones, laptops, GPS receivers, Abagail Liddle
 


Last Modified: September 23, 2005
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