AN ANALYSIS OF GROUND-FLIGHT LOADS MEASURED ON THE INSTRUMENTED B-727 N40.

Abstract : The Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center owns and operates an instrumented B-727 aircraft for in-house test and assessment of runway friction and to examine landing gear impact on runway surfaces. Numerous strain gages were installed on the landing gear. Prior analysis of the data was concerned primarily with supporting the FAA's airports research program. It was recognized that this data set also has application in correlating the aircraft internal gear loads to measured ground-flight loads for specific takeoff and landing conditions and runway operations. This in-house research affords the National Aging Aircraft Research Program an opportunity to assess new data, independently obtained, which is both of high quality and having unusually high sampling rates to examine the landing gear loads for a limited number of takeoff, landing, and ground maneuvers. Sixty sample-per-second time history traces were available for each of 72 events with the following breakdown: (1) Takeoff analysis, 22 events; (2) Landing analysis, 18 events; (3) Runway exit analysis, 9 events; (4) Braking analysis, 6 events; (5) S-turn analysis, 9 events; and (6) Minimum-radius turn analysis, 8 events.