REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. – When you are building the future of Army aviation, it is not enough to create revolutionary aviation technology. Sometimes you must also invent the infrastructure to make that technology happen.
This is what researchers in the Technology Development Directorate at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Aviation & Missile Center did in the NASA Langley Research Center 14- × 22-foot subsonic tunnel. While NASA and the Army have been longtime partners in testing Army rotorcraft, the Army’s Future Vertical Lift program necessitated a state-of-the-art test stand be developed for testing in the NASA tunnel.
Simply put, a test stand from the 1970s was not going to cut it for the Army of 2040.