SUMMARY

SUMMARY

The assembled ship set of decoupler pylons was ground tested in a fixture at the General Dynamics, Fort Worth Facility . The results of these ground tests were incorporated into the finite element simulation. The results of flutter analyses and aeroservoelastic analyses performed with the updated model are reported herein. The analyses show that the decoupler pylon will suppress wing-store flutter for the GBU-8 flight test stores configuration on an E'-16 airplane.

The feasibility of carrying the B-61 weapon on the decoupler pylon was also evaluated. The pylon design criteria considered only GBU-8 carriage and a series of additional analyses were conducted to evaluate the potential of this pylon for carrying the B-61 weapon without modifications. This series of analyses is reported herein. The analyses show that the pylons would need to be modified in order to demonstrate flutter suppression.

Model ground vibration tests and wind tunnel flutter model tests were conducted to support the anticipated full scale airplane flight test program. The results of the ground vibration tests performed on the 1/4 scale F-16 flutter model and the wind tunnel tests with this model and a model decoupler pylon are reported herein.

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