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July-August 2015 DEPARTMENTS Page 26 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK 2 More aviation cybersecurity, please LETTER TO THE EDITOR 3 Fighting wildfires with drones INTERNATIONAL BEAT 4 Page 40 Antonov looks for partners; India’s space programs IN BRIEF 6 Moon missions; radiation damage; HondaJet; connected aircraft ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK 10 Breakthrough material CONVERSATION 14 FAA opens the skies to unmanned aircraft BOOKS 16 Nixon’s space shuttle decision — and its consequences OUT OF THE PAST 46 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 48 Page 36 FEATURES UPPING THE STATION’S UPMASS 20 Five aerospace teams are vying for up to $14 billion in NASA contracts to boost the amount of cargo delivered to and from the International Space Station. by Debra Werner PREDICT TROUBLE; AVOID TROUBLE 26 Airliners are safe but expensive to maintain. One way to put a dent in those costs would be to know in advance which parts are likely to require maintenance — and when. by Henry Canaday AIRBUS VS. BOEING: WHOSE AUTOMATION PHILOSOPHY IS BEST? 32 Page 4 Airbus and Boeing each uses automation to make flying safer and easier. But the world’s two dominant manufacturers of large passenger jets have different ideas about how computers and pilots should interact. by Clint R. Balog ALL-SEEING AIRCRAFT 36 Before aircraft can fly without pilots at the controls, they’ll need to be equipped with sensors and computers capable of performing like the human eyes and brain. by Keith Button TRUST: 3-D MANUFACTURING’S HOLY GRAIL 42 Page 10 Additively made parts are being incorporated into spacecraft, but engineers are cautious about using the technique for propellant tanks on vehicles that must carry people or expensive scientific equipment. by Henry Kenyon BULLETIN Page 32 AIAA MEETING SCHEDULE B2 AIAA NEWS B5 ON THE COVER The five cargo vehicles competing for the $14 billion NASA contract(clockwise from top left): Cygnus(Orbital ATK); Dream Chaser (Sierra Nevada Corporation); Jupiter and Exoliner (Lockheed Martin); Dragon (SpaceX); CST-100 (Boeing) Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344 [703/264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500. Periodical postage paid at Reston, Va., and at additional mailing offices. Copyright 2015 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 53, No. 7 ® Editor’s Notebook is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Ben Iannotta Editor-in-Chief Kyung M. Song More aviation cybersecurity, please Associate Editor Greg Wilson Production Editor Most articles I read outside of Aerospace America invariably turn my thoughts Jerry Grey to matters of aerospace. That was the case with a feature article in Wired Editor-at-Large Christine Williams magazine about the FBI’s 2013 takedown of the San Francisco computer whiz Editor AIAA Bulletin who clandestinely ran the Silk Road digital drug bazaar. Ross Ulbricht is depicted as a seemingly normal young man who enjoyed Contributing Writers hanging out with his friends at the beach, playing drums, and going to the park Philip Butterworth-Hayes, Keith Button, with his housemate and her Chihuahuas. When he booted up his laptop, his Henry Canaday, Leonard David, online alter ego, The Dread Pirate Roberts, would view proof-of-death photos of Jim Hodges, Henry Kenyon, the enemies killed by hit men he hired online (The photos were apparently fakes). Natalia Mironova, Robert van der Linden, The Silk Road case shows that otherwise normal people will do things in cyber- Debra Werner, Frank H. Winter space that they would never do in the physical world. Maybe bits and bytes provide Jane Fitzgerald insulation from feeling the human toll of one’s actions, or maybe computer code Art Direction and Design simply gives physically weak bad people the power to do nasty things they’re not James F. Albaugh, President biologically equipped to do. Whatever the case, chances are, somewhere out there James “Jim” Maser, President-Elect is a person who in real life would never spring from an aisle seat to hijack an air- Sandra H. Magnus, Publisher liner or stand on a hillside and launch a shoulder-fired rocket at one, but who might Craig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution try the same via cyberspace. The aviation industry and governments around the world are aware of these STEERING COMMITTEE John Evans, Lockheed Martin; Steven E. digital risks and many others. When I think about our coverage of aviation ad- Gorrell, Brigham Young University; Frank Lu, vances in Aerospace America, I see a thread of Tom Clancy-worthy vulnerability University of Texas at Arlington; David R. running through these technologies. Once unmanned planes are enlisted against Riley, Boeing; Mary L. Snitch, Lockheed wildfires, it’s conceivable that a hacker will try to seize one in skies crowded with Martin; Annalisa Weigel, Panoptes Systems giant airtankers, just to see what happens. Researchers are hard at work on sense- EDITORIAL BOARD and-avoid technologies for unmanned planes, and the lure of trying to spoof this Ned Allen, Jean-Michel Contant, technology might be too much for your average hacker to bear. Or, imagine a L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Michael Francis, hacker breaking into an airliner’s flight control computer and daring a pilot to Cam Martin, Don Richardson, realize that his plane is headed the wrong way before it’s too late. Douglas Yazell The industry is acting. AIAA released its “Framework for Aviation Cybersecurity” in ADVERTISING 2013, and last year seven major airlines and some aircraft manufacturers created Joan Daly, 703-938-5907 the Aviation Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or A-ISAC, in Annapolis [email protected] Junction, Maryland. Pat Walker, 415-387-7593 Those are good starts, but experts rightly warn that cybersecurity has to be [email protected] improved widely, including in the FAA’s Next-Generation air traffic control plan and also internationally. LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE There is much more work to do, and the Silk Road case reminds us that the Ben Iannotta, [email protected] problem is not one to defer until tomorrow. QUESTIONS AND ADDRESS CHANGES [email protected] Ben Ianno tta Editor-in-Chief ADVERTISING MATERIALS Craig Byl, [email protected] July-August 2015, Vol. 53, No. 7 New Releases in Letter to th e Ed itor AIAA’s Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics Fighting wildfires with drones Thanks for your “Fire Drones” in Aerospace America [June]. As a former U.S. Air Force pilot June 2015 and attorney in aviation and aero- space, including several years repre- senting aiPr-retrcaisfifiocn control interests, I measurements am very interested in the subject in an affordable matter in pyaocukar gaer.ticle. That’s the an- Unmanned craft could be the edge against wildfires, swer to fighting forest fires. And the FAA permitting Your job is to move your space-based system from concept through idea of fighting fireinstasllati on. Tahe Kteys ightt FieildFmox enabeles ysou t o mawke cruchial RFe andn Page 28 Turbine Aerodynamics, &m iacnrotewnanvae tmesetaesru (rCemATe)n +ts v weicttho trh nreeet wporercki saen ainlystzreurm (VenNtAs )i n+ o snpee: cctarbulme no air carriers or otanhalyzeer. It’sr th e onae siniglre incstrumrenat prefciste e nouagh fror tehe la b aindn Heat Transfer, rugged enough for the  eld. area is the answerFi eldFofx Coombinratio n Ansalyzaersfety of all Materials, and concerned. FindingSM ixIL -mPfioRdFe-l2s8 ur8p0 t0eoF 2 C6l.a5ss Gs H2 zrugbgedefore they Agrees with benchtop measurements Mechanics spread would be idCAeT + VNaA + lSp,ec trump Analeyzerrhaps best Download “Correlating Measurements between accomplished, ultHwiwanwmd.theesltde qaunaidty B.ceotnmc/ehfiteolpdl fAoxny alyz,ers ” app nobte at y un- Buy from an Authorized Distributor 800 732 3457 Tom I-P. Shih and Vigor Yang manned observers in the sky, with AIAA MEMBER PRICE: $89.95 careful monitoring. PHOTO ILLUSTRATION LIST PRICE: $129.95 Thanks for your timely article. ISBN: 978-1-62410-263-9 NASA’s Shin on planes of the future/14 Bill Kraham © Keysight Technologies, Inc. 2015. Solving sense and avoid /34 Gaithersburg, MD A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS [email protected] • June cover-FINAL.indd 3 5/18/15 12:00 PM All letters addressed to the editor are considered to be submitted for possible publication, unless it is expressly stated otherwise. All letters are subject to editing for length and to author response. Letters should be sent to: Correspondence, Aerospace America,1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Suite 500, Reston, VA 20191-4344, or by email to: [email protected]. Events Calendar Computational Intelligence in 12–16 July 30–31 July Aerospace Sciences International Conference Business Management on Environmental Systems for Engineers; Massimiliano Vasile and Victor Bellevue, WA Hybrid Rocket Propulsion M. Becerra Contact: Andrew Jackson, Orlando, FL AIAA MEMBER PRICE: $94.95 806.834.6575 9–13 August LIST PRICE: $134.95 [email protected] 2015 AAS/AIAA Astrodynamics ISBN: 978-1-62410-260-8 www.depts.ttu.edu/ceweb/ices Specialist Conference 25–26 July Vail, Colorado The Application of Green Contact: Dr. W. Todd Cerven, Check out AIAA’s Propulsion for Future Space; [email protected], Progress in Advanced High Speed www.space-flight.org/docs/ Air Breathing Propulsion 2015_astro/2015_astro.html Astronautics Orlando, FL and Aeronautics 29–30 August 27–29 July Introduction to Space Systems Publications Now! AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2015 Pasadena, CA Forum; arc.aiaa.org 31 August–2 September 51st AIAA/SAE/ASEE Joint AIAA SPACE 2015 Propulsion Conference; (AIAA Space and Astronautics Orlando, FL Forum and Exposition) Pasadena, CA 15-656-C AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015 3 Ukraine’s Antonov looks urgently for partners e Antonov hopes that a recent orc F deal with Saudi Arabia to build AN-32 light Air transport multipurpose aircraft could help recharge S. interest in Ukraine’s dwindling domestic aircraft industry. U. The May announcement that Ukrai- and the military situation. tonov’s new partnerships will be nian aircraft manufacturer Antonov The venture with Saudi Arabia’s enough to reverse its fortunes. had struck a deal with Saudi Arabia King Abdulaziz City for Science and “It’s far from clear how a Ukrainian to develop and build a new version Technology was borne out of Antonov’s company, or any defense company, can of the AN-32 passenger and cargo efforts in the past year to seek alliances sell planes abroad without a home mar- aircraft was a hopeful sign for those with the Arab kingdom as well as with ket order,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice rooting for the revival of Antonov’s India and China to help finance and de- president of analysis at the Teal Group, moribund domestic business even velop a line of civil and military aircraft. a consulting firm in Fairfax, Virginia. amid the conflict with Russia. But de- The Antonov’s current product lineup “Even if there is a domestic buy, how spite the Saudi deal and an earlier includes the AN-148/AN-158 family of will export customers be reassured agreement with a Chinese company regional passenger aircraft; the AN-178 about product support for what would to jointly develop a new AN-178 mili- transport, a military cargo version of likely be an orphan aircraft?” tary cargo plane, analysts are cau- the AN-148; and the AN-32, AN-70 and Antonov executives are aware of tioning that Antonov’s revival re- AN-124 cargo aircraft. the skeptics but say interest in its air- mains an open question. The agreement to build the AN-32 craft remains high. The company, af- Antonov — once a symbol of will be the first commercial aircraft to ter all, built the world’s two largest Ukrainian industrial prowess and be designed and built in Saudi Arabia. aircraft — the AN-225 and AN-124. which has produced more than 22,000 The aircraft, with Pratt & Whitney en- Antonov’s most recent model is the aircraft since 1942 — is, according to gines and Honeywell avionics, is AN-178, a twin engine military cargo The New York Times, delivering meant to fill Saudi Arabia’s need for aircraft to compete with the Embraer barely 10 aircraft a year. The 2014 small cargo planes for both civilian KC-360 for the AN-12 and C-160 re- conflict between the Kiev government and military sectors. placement market and which flew and Russian separatists left the Ukrai- Despite the dearth of deliveries, for the first time in May. And despite nian economy in shambles, and the Antonov’s order books are slowly fill- news reports that no more AN-124s International Monetary Fund is pro- ing up. They include 10 AN-178s slated will be produced, Antonov’s head of jecting the former Soviet state’s econ- for Silk Way Airlines of Azerbaijan, as marketing told Aerospace America omy to shrink by 9 percent and for well as 90 orders for the A-148/AN-158 by email that a new version of the inflation to hit 46 percent by year end. passenger aircraft and 50 more orders AN-124 is under development: “At With orders from Russia, its main for special mission variants of the present, serial production of the AN- customer, gone, Antonov urgently same aircraft from several customers. 124-200 new cargo aircraft is being needs foreign partners to sustain its Antonov also has orders for 14 aircraft resumed,” Viktor Konarev says, add- business, experts say, though the gov- — nine AN-148/AN-158s, two AN-70s, ing it will have modernized airframe, ernment will be keen to see it survive. two light patrol aircraft and one light glass cockpit, full-authority digital But these experts say a mass of do- transport passenger aircraft —from the engine control and other features. mestic orders appears unlikely any Ukrainian government. Philip Butterworth-Hayes time soon, given the economic woes Still, skepticism lingers that An- [email protected] 4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015 India’s year of expansive space programs India has developed one of into a geosynchronous trans- the world’s most advanced fer orbit or 10 metric tons into satellite-based telemedicine a low earth orbit. networks, connecting pa- The Mark 3, with a third- tients in remote communi- stage cryogenic engine devel- ties with doctors in urban oped and built in India, will areas via high-speed Inter- make the ISRO self-sufficient net and telecommunications in the launch of heavier satel- systems. The country has lites, such as those required for also relied heavily on its future military communica- Earth-observation satellites tions and observation space- to track hurricanes, cyclones craft, say industry experts. On and patterns of environ- its first flight the Mark 3 car- mental degradation. It also ried an unmanned astronaut has used communications crew module, an experimental satellites to link medical version of ISRO’s future three- specialists to patients in far- person Orbital Vehicle. flung rural areas and to edu- Later this year military cate students. and civil customers will be But now, India is mak- able to start using position ing a major push to use satel- location services with India’s lites to expand its military version of the U.S. global po- capabilities, as part of the sitioning system. The fourth next stage of what many ex- of seven Indian Regional Sat- perts see as a possible arms ellite Navigation System race with China. spacecraft was launched in In May the Indian Navy March on an ISRO polar sat- began linking all its ships via ellite launch vehicle. The a satellite-based video-con- constellation will eventually ferencing network to enable comprise four satellites, with on-board medical teams three spares, to triangulate a treating wounded sailors at user’s position within an area sea to consult medical spe- encompassing India, its sur- cialists throughout India. Indian Space Research Organization rounding seas and neighbor- That has been made possible India’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark 3 lifts off carrying the Crew ing countries. by the August 2013 launch, Module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment. Also later this year will be on an Ariane 5, of the multi- the launch of the Reusable band 2,650 kilogram GSAT-7 includes a mission to the moon with Launch Vehicle-Technology Rukimi, the first exclusive military sat- a lunar rover within three years. Demonstration Program, a scaled ellite from the Indian Space Research In July, the ISRO is scheduled to down, test-bed version of a space shut- Organization, or ISRO. launch the next in the series of mili- tle which the ISRO wants to operate In addition, the space organiza- tary communications satellites — the within the next decade. The mission tion has a new range of heavy 2,200 kilogram GSAT-6 on a Mark 2 will include a hypersonic flight test. launchers —the Mark 3 version of the Indian geosynchronous satellite Meanwhile the IRSO’s Mangaly- geosynchronous satellite launch ve- launch vehicle from its spaceport at aan (“Mars craft” in Hindi) Mars or- hicle, GSLV —about to enter the mar- Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. This biter mission, launched in November ket. It also has new communications can carry a payload of up to 2.15 met- 2013 on top of an ISRO polar satellite and Earth-observation satellites in ric tons into a geosynchronous trans- launch vehicle, is circling Mars look- development, a global navigation sat- fer orbit. Previously in December ing for methane, as part of the search ellite system which will be opera- 2014 the ISRO made the first success- for life on the planet. tional by the end of 2015, and an am- ful test flight of the Mark 3 version of Philip Butterworth-Hayes bitious scientific program that the GSLV, built to take 4 metric tons [email protected] AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015 5 In Brief Broad agenda seen for China’s moon missions China, in the view of some American precise reentry corridor and a landing space experts, seems determined to at Siziwangqi in Inner Mongolia, ac- send humans to the moon. If so, evi- cording to the paper. dence suggests Chinese engineers By contrast, Apollo capsules might want to bring their astronauts plowed directly into the atmosphere. home via the same kind of “skip reen- NASA encoded a skip reentry capa- try” technique that the U.S. plans to use bility in the flight software as a back Associated Press/Xinhua for its Orion capsules. up in case of bad weather over the China launched an experimental unmanned U.S. space experts have been primary splashdown site, but the spacecraft atop a Long March 3C to fly around parsing a technical overview pub- technique was never used operation- the moon and back to Earth in preparation for the lished in April by Chinese space engi- ally. Orion capsules will have a more country’s first unmanned return trip to the lunar neers, describing the country’s 2014 advanced guidance and control strat- surface in 2014. circumlunar test mission, called egy to implement this skip capability. Chang’e 5-T1, in which an unmanned China, the paper said, also will The 2017 mission “shows that China capsule reentered and touched down employ the skip reentry to bring a lu- is serious about developing a com- in China’s Inner Mongolia Autono- nar sample home from an unmanned plete cislunar-lunar flight capability,” mous Region. mission it plans to launch in 2017. says lunar scientist Paul Spudis. The paper, “Technical Advance- China’s use of skip entry is rela- “They are shooting for cislunar space ments and Significance of Circumlu- tively complex, says Michelle Munk, dominance and, at this rate, will nar Return and Reentry Spacecraft,” an entry, descent, and landing princi- likely achieve it,” he adds. appeared in the journal, Science pal investigator at NASA’s Langley Re- Spudis was deputy leader of the China: Technological Sciences, pub- search Center in Virginia. science team for the Clementine probe lished by the Chinese National Acad- “From my perspective, it’s more that NASA and the Pentagon sent to emy of Sciences. It provided previ- complex than a simple ballistic entry. image the moon in 1994. It’s clear, ously unreleased details, including the Depending on the precision of the Spudis says, the Chinese “are certify- fact that China used a semi-ballistic, landing they want to achieve, the ing the architecture for a human mis- skip reentry technique, in which a guidance, navigation and control has sion to the moon.” capsule makes successive skips off the to be fairly sophisticated,” Munk says. China, however, describes its atmosphere, with each skip slowing In the view of another American plans as more limited. the capsule and dissipating reentry expert, the evidence suggests a de- China “has the ability to achieve heat. China guided the capsule to a sire for more than a lunar sample. the manned lunar landing but it has no plan to do it,” the country’s Xinhua on News Agency quoted Zhou Jianping, ati or chief designer of its manned space p or program, as saying earlier this year. C gy Zhou’s program has been limited to o nol low-Earth-orbit missions. h Tec “With China’s current technolo- nd gies of manned space flight and moon a nce probe, we have the technology basis Scie to realize the manned lunar mission,” ace Zhou reportedly said. p os According to the paper’s authors, Aer “The complete success of this mission a hin indicates that the key technologies of C circumlunar return and reentry have been broken through in China.” The paper also reports seven new kinds of lightweight thermal protection material were developed for the cap- sule, promoting the development and use of composite material in China. Leonard David After nearly 196 hours of flight, China’s Earth-to-moon-to-Earth reentry capsule parachuted into Siziwangqi in Inner Mongolia on November, and was recovered and delivered to Beijing. [email protected] 6 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015 Addressing risk of brain damage in spaceflight Brookhaven National Laboratory A physicist checks cabling on the radiation beam line, an apparatus at the Energy Department’s Brookhaven National Lab in New York. The beam line transmits charged particles to irradiate mice for NASA and simulate what astronauts would experience in deep space. The research article, “What happens their medial prefrontal cortices had announced a new $9 million grant to to your brain on the way to Mars,” thinned compared to control mice. Limoli’s team for more mice experi- earned some sensational headlines Charles Limoli, professor of radia- ments to study early and long-term when it was published in May on a tion oncology at the University of Cal- effects of galactic cosmic radiation website run by the American Associa- ifornia at Irvine and senior author of on the central nervous system. tion for the Advancement of Science. the study, likened the effect to prun- Just how much can be learned Smithsonian.com declared, “A trip to ing the branches of a tree. “Perhaps from mice remains an open question. Mars could give you brain damage.” most concerning to NASA is that we Mice are far from ideal surrogates for The Space Foundation ran the head- have no evidence that these changes astronauts, not least because the ani- line in its news roundup. ever resolve,” he says. mals have relatively short lifespans, The headlines weren’t wrong. The report’s findings raise a seri- And primates haven’t been used for NASA-funded researchers set out to ous concern, but judging by com- radiation experiments since the 1990s learn whether deep-space radiation ments from researchers, it seems un- because of animal welfare concerns. would have a different effect on the likely to derail NASA’s aspirations to It’s costly to generate particles to brain than radiation on Earth and, if send astronauts to Mars sometime in simulate deep space. So, mice are typi- so, what those effects might be. They the 2030s. cally irradiated in one session, whereas irradiated mice at Brookhaven Na- Limoli says the findings need to astronauts would experience lower lev- tional Lab on Long Island and six be viewed in context. els of radiation that would be cumula- weeks later put them in pens with “The astronauts, when they get in tive over the three-year duration of a toys. The irradiated mice showed less the car, they expose themselves to Mars mission. Astronauts also would curiosity to new toys in the pen or higher risk of dying than when they return to Earth to live for decades, but new placement of familiar toys. Re- go into space,” he says. “Everything mice don’t live long enough to assess searchers later dissected the mice has to be taken in perspective.” The impacts for that length of time. brains and found that the normally ultimate goal of this and other re- Those factors point to “the big- thick network of neuron dendrites in search is to come up with possible so- gest hole” in all of the research pub- lutions to whatever lished to date, says Dr. M. Kerry e the damaging ef- O’Banion of the University of Roch- nc Scie fects might be, pos- ester, who was not involved with the of sibly in the form of recent mice experiment but whose ent pharmaceutical 2012 study with mice linked deep- m e therapies, he says. space radiation exposure to in- nc dva NASA in a pre- creased risk of Alzheimer’s disease. A e pared statement It’s “recognized that radiation h or t says ”these studies and brain don’t mix,” but how bad on f and future studies and long-lasting is the damage? “If ociati will continue to in- the [human] brain sustains such dam- Ass form our under- age — but at a very low level — are an standing as we pre- there intrinsic repair mechanisms or eric pare for the plasticity of the brain? Or ways that it m A journey to Mars.” can recover if you have a slow In fact, earlier this chronic problem? And people in neu- year, as the re- roscience will have different answers Brains of mice before (left) and after exposure to simulated deep-space searchers were for that,” he says. radiation showed a thinned network of neuron dendrites in their medial heading toward Natalia Mironova prefrontal cortices. The mice were genetically engineered to express green fluorescent protein in certain neuronal subsets. publication, NASA [email protected] AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015 7 In Brief HondaJet with uncommon engine placement nearing debut When Honda Aircraft Co. flew its HondaJet on a marketing tour through Japan and Europe in May after earn- ing a preliminary FAA approval, the curious public looked first for the plane’s most-intriguing feature: en- gines mounted atop the wings. The FAA is expected to issue its fi- nal certification soon, which could trig- ger deliveries of the first of more than Honda 100 of the $4.5 million jet on order. The plane is the culmination of HondaJet’s unusual engine placement atop the wings has some people wondering if it might start a design trend. more than two decades of personal nurturing by Honda Aircraft Presi- dent and CEO Michimasa Fujino. The configuration dynamics at NASA’s recently retired as NASA Langley’s four- and five-passenger business jet Langley Research Center. Wahls was chief engineer. “They’ve done that. is the first from Honda Aircraft. The part of a HondaJet test in 2005-07, You look at those nacelles and the py- first 20 are in production in Greens- when the company bought time in lons they sit on, and it’s clear that it’s boro, North Carolina. The plane Langley’s National Transonic Facility . all very asymmetric and tailored for competes in the very-light-jet class Wahls says the jet’s composite fu- the transonic regime they’re in.” against Embraer SA and Cessna Mus- selage reduces weight, part of the The engines-over-wing concept is tang, among others. Honda says the reason why the HondaJet burns 17 not new; early seaplanes had them, jet cruises at 420 knots at 30,000 feet, percent less fuel than Cessna, accord- and so does the Boeing X-48 blended- 10 percent faster than published ing to Honda. Wahls says the air flow wing body research aircraft for NASA. speeds for Embraer and Cessna. And on the slightly bulged forebody and The design, however, long ago fell out because it doesn’t need bracing aluminum wing reduces drag, as of favor. But not out of mind. NASA through the fuselage to support en- does the orientation of the nacelle on has studied over-the-wing engine con- gines in the rear, Honda says it was the pylon, and the contouring of the figurations on transport airplanes. able to make the cabin bigger than it two. “I think what they’ve been able “Sometimes it’s a matter of tech- would have been. to do through very detailed shaping nology catching up with ideas or of Though HondaJet may be the of the pylon/nacelle is not only avoid fusing the right ideas together to get fastest in its class right now, that a penalty on drag, but gain a system the right overall system benefits,” could change with the announcement level benefit,” Wahls says. Wahls says. “Then you have a winner.” last October by Sierra Industries that Minimizing drag — enemy of Wahls says the HondaJet’s engine it will offer the new GE Honda/HF120 speed and stability —and maximizing placement could change some minds. engine for Cessna retrofit upgrades. airflow were critical to making the “You would probably find people HondaJet’s engine placement is uncommon engine placement pay who say it’s better and people who just a part —albeit a key part —of a off. The HondaJet’s engine intakes are still skeptics,” he says. “But I design that has benefited from ad- are at the wing’s trailing edge, and think they’ve made it work and it vances in computational fluid dynam- pylons are shaped and slightly an- may start a trend. Others may take ics and wind-tunnel testing. gled. The result is channeled airflow another look at this installation be- The engines-on-top decision was and a reduced chance of shock. cause of the HondaJet and find new “not one silver bullet for perfor- “All of that has to be tailored so and practical benefits. We’ll see.” mance. It’s all things in the system,” as to not get those shocks, so you can Jim Hodges says Rich Wahls, associate head of get low drag,” says Larry Leavitt, who [email protected] 8 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JULY-AUGUST 2015