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Computers Take Flight COMPUTERS TAKE FLIGHT A HISTORY OF NASA’S PIONEERING DIGITAL FLY-BY-WIRE PROJECT James E. Tomayko COMPUTERS TAKE FLIGHT: A HISTORY OF NASA’S PIONEERING DIGITAL FLY-BY-WIRE PROJECT Group shot of the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire team as of 1972. Standing (viewer’s left to right), Kenneth E. Adamek, Delco Electronics Company field service engineer; William R. Petersen, Flight Research Center (FRC) flight controls engineer; Bruce A. Peterson, FRC project engineer; Wilton P. Lock, FRC flight controls engineer; Dwain A. Deets, FRC research engineer; Darrell G. Sperry, FRC aircraft mechanic; R. Bruce Richardson, FRC data systems engineer; Kenneth J. Szalai, FRC research engineer; James R. Phelps, FRC operations engineer; Gary E. Krier, FRC project research pilot; William J. Clark, FRC instrument electronics technician; Floyd W. Salyer, FRC instrument electronics technician; George H. Nichols, FRC instrument electronics crew chief; Edward C. Coyle, FRC quality inspector; unknown operations engineer from Kennedy Space Center; Thomas A. McAlister, FRC telemetering technician. Kneeling (viewer’s left to right), Rick Hurt, engineer from Kennedy Space Center; Francis J. Fedor, FRC aircraft mechanic; James D. Hankins, FRC aircraft crew chief; Glen E. Angle, FRC electronics technician; Daniel C. Garrabrant, FRC aircraft mechanic; Willard Dives, FRC aircraft mechanic. (Private photo provided by Jim Phelps). NASA SP-2000-4224 COMPUTERS TAKE FLIGHT: A HISTORY OF NASA’S PIONEERING DIGITAL FLY-BY-WIRE PROJECT James E. Tomayko The NASA History Series National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Office of Policy and Plans NASA History Office Washington, D.C. 2000 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tomayko, J.E. (James E.), 1949- Computers take flight: a history of NASA’s pioneering digital fly-by-wire project/ James E. Tomayko. p. cm.— (NASA history series) “NASA SP-4224.” Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Fly-by-wire control—Research—United States—History. 2. Crusader (Jet fighter plane)—History. 3. NASA Dryden Flight Research Center—Research—History. I. Title. II. Series TL678.5 .T65 2000 629.135’5—dc21 99-047421 Dedication To the women with whom I share my life, for sharing me with NASA: my wife Laura and my daughter Gabriela Huiming Contents Acknowledgments .......................................................................................... ii Foreword........................................................................................................ iv Preface ........................................................................................................... vi Introduction: The Promise of a New Flight-Control Technology ............... vii Chapter One.....................................................................................................1 The History of Flight-Control Technology Chapter Two ..................................................................................................21 The Origins of NASA’s Involvement in Fly-By-Wire Research Chapter Three ................................................................................................35 The Reliability Challenge and Software Development Chapter Four ..................................................................................................57 Converting the F-8 to Digital Fly-By-Wire Chapter Five ..................................................................................................69 The Phase I Flight-Research Program: Digital Control Proven Chapter Six ....................................................................................................85 Phase Shifting: Digital Redundancy and Space Shuttle Support Chapter Seven..............................................................................................103 The Phase II Flight-Research Program: Proof of Concept, Space Shuttle Support, and Advanced Experiments Chapter Eight...............................................................................................125 The Impact and Legacy of NASA’s Digital Fly-By-Wire Project Appendix: DFBW F-8C Flight Logs ...........................................................136 Glossary.......................................................................................................154 Bibliography ................................................................................................161 About the Author .........................................................................................169 Index ............................................................................................................170 The NASA History Series ...........................................................................176 i Acknowledgments There are many in NASA I want to thank, most especially Kenneth Cox, John D. (Dill) Hunley, and Kenneth J. Szalai. While I was researching the Space Shuttle control system, I interviewed Ken Cox, who was the first to tell me about the F-8 digital fly-by-wire project. He inspired me to visit the Dryden Flight Research Center to find out more about it, a visit that resulted in a short paper about the project and the desire to do more. Over a decade later, Dill Hunley convinced Ken Szalai that a history of the project was in order. Szalai, then the Center Director, supported the idea and Dill husbanded the project at every stage. He has been a constant source of encouragement and help, truly facilitating the production of this book. He is the finest editor with whom I have ever worked. I would also like to thank the Dryden archivists who were so helpful in finding source material and answering questions, Curt Asher and Peter Merlin. Pete is a walking library and museum in himself. Betty Love, a veteran of many years at the Center and now a part-time volunteer archivist and researcher, can identify just about everyone who worked there beginning in the Muroc days down to the present, and was very supportive on my research visits. She, amazingly, found the names of all but one of the people in the photograph shown opposite the title page despite 27 years of distance and no identifications kept with the photo. Ken assembled a team of participants to review each chapter for technical and historical accuracy. I interviewed all of them as well, so they made a significant contribution of their time to this book. They are Dwain Deets, Philip Felleman, Calvin Jarvis, James Phelps, and Ken Szalai. Gary Krier also checked large parts of the manuscript and was very encouraging. These men did a good job of keeping me out of trouble, but I am still responsible for the content of the book and its accuracy. The survival of a particular individual’s notes often seemed purely serendipitous. I regret that I did not have the resources to locate a wider variety of diary-like material, but the notes we did find were from key players in every step of the project. One of the advantages of being a college teacher is the opportunity to hire bright young people to help with projects. Hopefully they learn something about writing history and the subject technology, and they often provide insights someone too close to the material will miss. Debbie Martin built a general bibliography of fly-by-wire that I have used in writing several articles and this book. Megan Barke enthusiastically learned enough about the technology to ask questions that led to improved explanations and was a great help on research trips to Draper Laboratory and the Center. She re- viewed and helped revise the introduction and chapters one through four. She also drafted Appendix I and one-third of Appendix II. Alina Mason reviewed and helped revise all remaining chapters. She had a keen eye for undefined acronyms and identified items for the glossary as well as doing the last two- thirds of Appendix II. Mackenzie Dilts helped me through a few emergencies ii and revised the bibliography and appendices. Rachel Knapp worked on the index. To all I express my gratitude and best wishes for success in their lives. On the production side, Carla Thomas and Jim Ross scanned the illustra- tions—a tedious job that required considerable concentration, expertise, and effort on their parts. Camilla McArthur shepherded the book through printing under a Government Printing Office contract and Darlene Lister did the copy editing, both in expert fashion. Steve Lighthill made this a book by doing the layout. I am grateful for a special version of Paul McDonell’s digital image of the CF-105, of which others are available at http://www.comnet.ca/ ~mach3gfx. I would like to thank my colleague Mary Shaw for encouraging me to apply to do this project and for her moral support. Finally, my wife, Laura Lallement Tomayko, helped gather some materials from the archives on a research trip, and also helped with the revisions and footnotes, including the entire bibliography. James E. Tomayko 13 August 1999 iii Foreword This history of the F-8 Digital Fly-By-Wire Project at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center by Dr. James E. Tomayko of Carnegie Mellon University is important for a number of reasons. Not the least of these is the significance of the program itself. In 1972 the F-8C aircraft used in the program became the first digital fly-by-wire aircraft to operate without a mechanical backup system. This fact was important in giving industry the confidence to develop its own digital systems, since flown on military aircraft such as the F-18, F-16, F-117, B-2, and F-22, as well as commercial airliners like the Boeing 777. Flying
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