| definition |
- he S-3B Viking was built to take off and land on carrier ships, fly into enemy territory and take out threatening submarines. It's rugged, fast and powerful, but its fighting days are numbered. Though the United States Navy is slowly decommissioning the fleet, one S-3B is still flying in hostile conditions. Its next mission? Venture into hazardous weather to study a phenomenon that has caused more than 100 commercial aircraft engines to fail, stall or temporarily lose power. Engineers from NASA's Glenn Research Center, Boeing and the Navy have combined forces to transform the S-3B into a state-of-the-art NASA research aircraft. Last month, NASA Glenn unveiled the modified plane in Cleveland.
"We were able to capitalize on the decommissioning by acquiring the aircraft directly from the Navy," explained Dr. Rickey Shyne, director of Glenn's Facilities and Test Directorate. "This saved taxpayers millions of dollars compared to the cost of a new aircraft."
Workers at the Navy's Fleet Readiness Center - Southeast and a Boeing facility in Fla. enhanced the plane by adding commercial satellite communications, global positioning navigation and weather radar systems. They installed research equipment racks in what was once the plane's bomb bay. And they gave it a shiny blue-and-white NASA paint job. With these new features, NASA's S-3B Viking is equipped to conduct science and aeronautics missions, such as environmental monitoring, satellite communications testing and aviation safety research. It can fly up to 40,000 feet high and reach speeds faster than 500 miles per hour, which makes it perfect for studying commercial airline safety issues.
[Text provided by: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/s3_viking.html ]
[Photo provided by: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2368/2327814717_4ce60b336d.jpg?v=1205338421 ]
Group: Platform_Details Entry_ID: CORSAIR 131A Group: Platform_Identification Platform_Category: Aircraft Short_Name: CORSAIR 131A End_Group Creation_Date: 2008-07-14 Online_Resource: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/s3_viking.html Sample_Image: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2368/2327814717_4ce60b336d.jpg?v=1205338421 End_Group
|
