inigo88
Composite-lover
I toured the USS Midway museum recently and they have a good collection of static displays you can sit in and cockpit mock-ups. The photos below are from a cockpit mock-up of an F-8 Crusader. The Vought F-8 Crusader was an airplane I've never known much about, from a time period I didn't know much about (post-Korean War to Vietnam War era).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader
A particular technical hallmark of the Crusader I found fascinating is the fact that it was one of the only (and the last) aircraft to be designed with a "Variable Incidence Wing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-incidence_wing
Per Wikipedia:
We're probably all familiar with flaps and leading edge slats being common techniques used to change the aerodynamic shape of the wing to create more lift and shorten takeoff & landing rolls (and conversely swing-wings for converting the aircraft to a delta wing configuration for high speed flight), but the idea of taking the whole wing and changing its angle of incidence (normally fixed) by shoving it upwards with hydraulic jacks was totally foreign to me until recently.
Vought also engineered in a Boundary Layer Control (BLC) system, which (I believe) automatically controlled the position of the leading edge slats. The BLC switch appears in one of the photos below forward of the throttle on the left side panel, with OFF and AUTO positions.
Being the aviation history and engineering geek that I am, the very first thing I had to look for when I realized the cockpit mock-up I was sitting in belonged to the Crusader was where the variable-incidence wing control was. It's activated by an E-brake style handle (with a release button) located behind and to the left of the throttle on the left side panel. I just wanted to share a couple of the cockpit photos I took with you guys. The variable-incidence wing concept wasn't pursued (although one could argue the movable horizontal stab trim on modern airliners employs the same idea) and the BLC/automatic slat feature is standard on most modern fighter aircraft, so this is kind of a look back at this technology in its infancy. The engineers at Vought clearly took some risks departing from the aerodynamic norms and it resulted in an interesting and non-standard cockpit interface.
(P.S. This mock-up is not entirely accurate. What primary flight instrument is missing?)
(Silver "Wing Incidence" handle. I'm not sure if the black "DN. Lock" knob above it is part of the wing incidence system or the wing-fold mechanism for parking on the carrier.)
Edit: This airplane keeps surprising me with its weird and unique systems. APC (the last item on the before landing checklist and the switch above BLC) stands for "Approach Power Compensator", and was a system which automatically compensated changes in angle of attack with engine power, to make the F-8 less of an "ensign-killer" during carrier landings. BLC might not have to do with the slats after all but rather the direction of bleed air over the trailing edges of the wings to prevent boundary layer separation in that region. Pretty cool!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vought_F-8_Crusader
A particular technical hallmark of the Crusader I found fascinating is the fact that it was one of the only (and the last) aircraft to be designed with a "Variable Incidence Wing."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable-incidence_wing
Per Wikipedia:
A variable-incidence wing has an adjustable angle of incidence in order to reduce landing and take-off distances. It was patented in France on May 20, 1912 by Bulgarian inventor George Boginoff.[SUP][1][/SUP]
One of the earlier designs to use it was the Supermarine Type 322 of 1943 intended, though not adopted, for aircraft carrier use.
The necessary components add extra weight to the aircraft and increase maintenance costs. In some aircraft the benefits outweigh the costs, and variable-incidence functionality is incorporated into the design, most notably with the F-8 Crusader, although other designs have used it, such as the Martin XB-51.
No modern aircraft has used this design since the F-8, and it was omitted from the derivative, subsonic A-7 Corsair II due to lower landing speeds and weights.
We're probably all familiar with flaps and leading edge slats being common techniques used to change the aerodynamic shape of the wing to create more lift and shorten takeoff & landing rolls (and conversely swing-wings for converting the aircraft to a delta wing configuration for high speed flight), but the idea of taking the whole wing and changing its angle of incidence (normally fixed) by shoving it upwards with hydraulic jacks was totally foreign to me until recently.
Vought also engineered in a Boundary Layer Control (BLC) system, which (I believe) automatically controlled the position of the leading edge slats. The BLC switch appears in one of the photos below forward of the throttle on the left side panel, with OFF and AUTO positions.
Being the aviation history and engineering geek that I am, the very first thing I had to look for when I realized the cockpit mock-up I was sitting in belonged to the Crusader was where the variable-incidence wing control was. It's activated by an E-brake style handle (with a release button) located behind and to the left of the throttle on the left side panel. I just wanted to share a couple of the cockpit photos I took with you guys. The variable-incidence wing concept wasn't pursued (although one could argue the movable horizontal stab trim on modern airliners employs the same idea) and the BLC/automatic slat feature is standard on most modern fighter aircraft, so this is kind of a look back at this technology in its infancy. The engineers at Vought clearly took some risks departing from the aerodynamic norms and it resulted in an interesting and non-standard cockpit interface.
(P.S. This mock-up is not entirely accurate. What primary flight instrument is missing?)
(Silver "Wing Incidence" handle. I'm not sure if the black "DN. Lock" knob above it is part of the wing incidence system or the wing-fold mechanism for parking on the carrier.)
Edit: This airplane keeps surprising me with its weird and unique systems. APC (the last item on the before landing checklist and the switch above BLC) stands for "Approach Power Compensator", and was a system which automatically compensated changes in angle of attack with engine power, to make the F-8 less of an "ensign-killer" during carrier landings. BLC might not have to do with the slats after all but rather the direction of bleed air over the trailing edges of the wings to prevent boundary layer separation in that region. Pretty cool!