"...On September 29, 2014, the ITF deployed a team of 40 testers to the McKinley Climatic Laboratory (MCL), the world’s largest environmental testing chamber. The 96th Test Wing, a US Air Force Materiel Command unit, operates the MCL at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. For six months, the Pax River ITF Climatic Test team and key members of the Edwards ITF have capitalized upon the MCL’s proven capability to recreate nearly every weather condition on Earth as they assessed the performance of aircraft BF-05, the short take-off/vertical landing (STOVL) variant, in a wide array of temperatures and meteorological conditions. Testers put the aircraft through extremes such as -40°F/C up to 120°F (48.8°C) and featured wind, solar radiation, fog, humidity, rain intrusion/ingestion, freezing rain, icing cloud, icing build-up, vortex icing and snow.
By placing BF-05 onto a purpose-built frame, test pilots were able to ‘fly’ a standard profile in accordance with defined test sequences. This profile featured a normal start-up, a VSBIT (vehicle systems built-in test) to check the onboard systems, a simulated short take-off, a climb out, full afterburner runs in conventional mode, and a simulated vertical landing. Each meteorological condition was fully tested and featured 60% ground operations and 40% flying, including engine runs and simulated flight in both conventional and STOVL modes. Testers also ensured the collection of accurate and representative data during the icing evaluation by installing additional F-35A and F-35C icing detector probes according to each variant’s design.
“This type of testing doesn’t happen every day,” says US Navy test pilot Cdr Tony ‘Brick’ Wilson. “What the McKinley team has pulled off at Eglin is a real feat of engineering; it’s been a very surreal experience to walk from normal Florida weather into the hangar where it’s like the Arctic and test the F-35. We’ll complete our testing at the end of March 2015 and I’m pleased to say that the findings have been very positive to date.”...
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