The Pace Quickens

Beginning in the early 1960s, a flurry of new military aircraft develop­ment programs resulted in an unprecedented workload for the drop – model personnel. Support was requested by the military services for the General Dynamics F-111, Grumman F-14, McDonnell-Douglas F-15, Rockwell B-1A, and McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 development programs. In addition, drop-model tests were conducted in support of the Grumman

X-29 and the X-31—sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)—research aircraft programs, which were scheduled for high-angle-of-attack full-scale flight tests at the Dryden flight facility. The specific objectives and test programs conducted with the drop models were considerably different for each configura­tion. Overviews of the results of the military programs are given in this volume, in another case study by this author.