NASA Celebrates Air and Space at EAA Airventure 2004
NASA will present its accomplishments in aeronautics and
space to the public next week at the EAA AirVenture 2004 in
Oshkosh, Wis. The Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA)
annual event attracts over 800,000 aviation enthusiasts from
around the world. It will run from July 27 to August 2. NASA
will present a large exhibit and many agency employees will
be on hand to answer visitors’ questions. NASA Administrator
Sean O’Keefe plans to visit EAA AirVenture on Wednesday, July
28, at 12:30 p.m. EDT, to discuss the nation’s Vision for
Space Exploration announced by the President in January.
NASA’s Langley Research Center, Hampton, Va., will bring its
experiment-ready white Cirrus SR22X general-aviation aircraft
to EAA AirVenture 2004 to illustrate progress in the Small
Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) program. Dr. J. Victor
Lebacqz, NASA Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, will
hold a press conference about the SATS program on Wednesday,
July 28, at 11:30 a.m. EDT at EAA AirVenture.
SATS is a NASA technology research partnership with the
Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) and state and local aviation and airport
authorities. The project’s initial focus is to prove that on-
board computing, advanced flight controls, Highway in the Sky
displays, and automated air traffic separation and sequencing
technologies will make on-demand flights safe and accessible
for a large percentage of the population in the future.
On Friday, July 30, from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. EDT, the
NASA/FAA Revolutionary Vehicles Student Competition
Presentations will take place at EAA AirVenture. High school
and college students will participate in a brief awards
ceremony to be followed by student winners’ presentations
about their ideas for personal air vehicles and unmanned air
vehicles.
The visitor-operated Wright Flyer simulator will be back for
an encore at the NASA EAA AirVenture exhibit. Fresh from
their record-setting Mach 7 X-43A scramjet flight success
this March, engineers from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research
Center, Edwards, Calif., and Langley Research Center will
hold a special evening event on Wednesday, July 28, to
recount the remarkable chain of events that led to the first
flight of an air-breathing supersonic combustion ramjet
aircraft.
Annual NASA exhibit favorites like the NASA craftsman
displays will show aeronautical technology in action. NASA
education specialists will be working in the KidVenture area
and the main NASA exhibit so educators may learn more about
NASA educational materials and partnerships like the Explorer
Schools program.
Visitors to EAA AirVenture 2004 may try their hand at flying
approaches using the experimental Synthetic Vision Systems —
General Aviation (SVS-GA) portable simulator from Langley.
NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., will
bring to Oshkosh its commitment to revolutionizing air
traffic management in the form of an interactive digital
display called “Edgarville Airport — Take Off to the Future
of Air Travel.”
Visitors to the NASA exhibit this year may learn about shaped
sonic booms that point the way to quieter passage of
supersonic aircraft overhead. NASA and industry partners
tested a specially modified F-5 supersonic jet fighter
recently to see how its enlarged forward fuselage could make
sonic booms quieter. Another supersonic promise that will be
on display at Oshkosh this year is a scale model of a new
parametric jet engine inlet. This inlet, designed and tested
at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, could make
supersonic engines lighter and more efficient, and eliminate
the problem of engine unstart, a condition where supersonic
shockwaves entering a jet inlet drastically reduce the amount
of air reaching the engine, causing a loss of thrust.
Visitors to the NASA exhibit will hear about efforts to
identify the technologies that could enable uninhabited
aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enter the national airspace system
safely. UAVs have many potential uses including national
security, by assisting with patrol of lonely stretches of
America’s international borders. Some of NASA’s UAV ambitions
are out of this world: a discussion of Flight on Other Worlds
in the exhibit area will be about the day when remotely
piloted aircraft obtain scientific data while flying over the
surface of Mars. Other concepts include balloons and blimps
buoyed by the harsh atmospheres of other planets. It’s all
part of the nation’s Vision for Space Exploration.
NASA’s exhibits at EAA AirVenture 2004 will be staffed by men
and women from around the country who work in the various
NASA centers. Scientists, engineers, test pilots, writers,
educators, aerial photographers and astronauts will help make
up the NASA complement at Oshkosh — individuals who are
happy to talk with visitors about what they do at NASA.
Information about NASA is available on the Internet at:
www.nasa.gov
