military fatigue assessment & washout
Hi,
I originally posted this in the Tech forum, but was advised that this would be the right place for this quesiton.
1. How does the military go about estimating the fatigue life / usage of their machines, be they aircraft or choppers? Is there a US military procedure where you put in the weight carried, flight path loading, (i.e. is it just a standard 1.1g - 1.2g flight or did it have a hard landing) / environment, (was the flight low down in rough air)? Then from this you can work out how much airframe life was used? I imagine for the choppers the engines and transmissions would have hard times/lives, but would how would the airframe usage be accounted for? Would the modern military choppers, i.e. NH90, be any different?
2. Does anyone know the washout applied to the wing of the F/A-18A and was it changed as this airframe progressed through to the E/A-18G?
Regards
Mark