Five Rings Aerospace, an Australian engineering company, specializes in custom aircraft modifications. Recently, they were hired to mount a digital aerial mapping system to a BAE Jetstream 32 (J32) aircraft.
One of the first steps in the design qualification was to assess the vibration conditions the mapping system would experience when mounted to the aircraft.
Five Rings contacted Lansmont about using our SAVER 9X30 to record the dynamic conditions of the J32 aircraft during flight operations in order to provide actual vibration data to the imaging system manufacturer for review.
For the flight testing, the SAVER 9X30 was mounted inside a non-pressurized belly mounted baggage pod at the location propsed for the mapping system (see photos below).
Field measurement and data recording
A variety of flight segments were recorded, including:
- engine start and taxi
- take-off
- cruise, climb, descent, and steep turns
- landing
- aircraft parking and shutdown (engines off)
Lansmont helped with the data analysis, providing frequency-domain power spectral density (PSD) plots for each of the flight and taxi segments.
The mapping system manufacturer reviewed the SAVER data and confirmed that the imaging hardware would function properly when mounted to the J32. Dynamic performance of the mounting system was a critical feature of this custom-design solution.
Five Ring's customer was able to move forward with their purchase and installation of the digital imaging system, thanks in-part to the confidence gained from the vibration data recorded with Lansmont’s SAVER 9X30.
