Eight Battleship

His mantra was ‘my word is my bond’ and the DC-8, because of early performance shortfalls, was to test that to the limit.

But Douglas’s engineers fixed the problems and then designed the Super 60 series that were to prove a bonanza for airlines.

Fast forward to 2015 and an opportunity of a lifetime – to fly on the NASA DC-8, one of the last DC-8s flying.

A year in the planning and approvals and delayed by the need to report on aviation tragedies such as MH370, the big day loomed with almost schoolboy first love anticipation.

Is all my photographic equipment charged up? What if the weather is lousy with the mission scrubbed? How much time do I allow to drive from Long Beach to Palmdale in peak hour? The day dawned without a cloud – just light mist. And my three hours drive saw a perfect on-time arrival.

The DC-8 is operated by NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Centre and is based at Palmdale Regional Airport about 120km northeast of LA.

Palmdale is home to a fleet of five NASA aircraft including the DC-8 and a Boeing 747SP which sports a massive telescope.

The fleet is dedicated to advancing technology and science through flight.

It has a wide range of missions from validating space exploration concepts to conducting airborne remote sensing and science missions related to the atmosphere. One of the DC-8’s main missions of recent years has been IceBridge.

Using a sophisticated suite of scientific instruments it measures annual changes in thickness of sea ice, glaciers, and ice sheets.

IceBridge is a six-year NASA mission launched in 2009 and is the largest airborne survey of Earth’s polar ice ever flown.

NASA says it is yielding an unprecedented three-dimensional view of Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets, ice shelves and sea ice. These flights, using not just the DC-8 but NASA’s P-3 and C-130 aircraft, are designed to provide a yearly, multiinstrument look at the behaviour of the rapidly changing features of the Greenland and Antarctic ice.

Data collected during IceBridge will help scientists bridge the gap in polar observations between NASA’s Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation Satellite (ICESat-I) launched in 2003 – and ICESat- II, planned for late 2015. ICESat-I stopped collecting science data in 2009, making IceBridge critical for ensuring a continuous series of observations.

IceBridge is using airborne instruments to map Arctic and

This DC-8 has been a visitor to Australia on numerous occasions chasing cyclones.

Antarctic areas once a year. The first IceBridge flights were conducted in March/May 2009 over Greenland and in October/November 2009 over Antarctica. Other smaller airborne surveys around the world are also part of the IceBridge campaign.

But this is not just the province of a few scientists.

On the last mission to the South Pole students used an online text chat portal that allowed them to ask researchers questions over the DC‑8’s Iridium satellite communication system.

During these chats, IceBridge communicated with 867 students in 37 classrooms across the US and Chile.

But I am well away from the South Pole on a balmy Californian morning.

I am greeted like a long lost friend by NASA officials – there is a special bond between lovers of the DC-8.

These pilots have the right stuff in spades.

Our captain for the flight is Richard G ‘Dick’ Ewers, a 43 year veteran from 747s and airships to F/A‑18 fighters. A Vietnam veteran and qualified test pilot he has done it all and more.

Helping him fly the DC-8 is another top gun, David Fedors. A colonel in the US Air Force Reserve Fedors has also been a military and civilian test pilot and is the lead author of numerous Air Force Test Center technical papers.

Our DC-8 has done it all as well.

Built in 1969 (MSN 46082/Line 458) as a Douglas DC-8 Super 62 she carried the registration I-DIWK and was delivered to Italy’s Alitalia and christened Giacomo Puccini after one of the world’s greatest opera composers.

Ten years on she was sold to Braniff International Airways and reregistered N801BN. In May 1982 Braniff collapsed and the DC-8 wasreturned to the lessor IAL. Quiet Nacelle Corporation leased her from September 1984 to December 1985 and NASA purchased her in February 1986.

Within weeks the Super 62 was being transformed into a Super 73 with the mod (centred on new CFM56 engines) completed in April 1986. The NASA DC-8 was the last Cammacorp 70 series conversion.

Since then the DC-8 has carried a series of registrations; N717NA; N817NA; N436NA and finally back to N817NA.

NASA purchased the DC-8 to replace a Convair 990 (N712NA) that was destroyed in a fire following a rejected takeoff at March AFB in July 1985.

The aircraft was initially based at NASA Ames at Moffett field and was assigned to Dryden – now Armstrong – in 1998 as part of NASA consolidation of flight operations andre-registered as N817NA.

This DC-8 has been a visitor to Australia on numerous occasions chasing cyclones as has seen Townsville, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Darwin.

She has 52,700 total flight hours on the clock – a faction of her capability.

In fact the DC-8 is the only aircraft that has unlimited structural life.

She was designed by old school aeronautical engineers who cut their teeth on the plane that taught the world to fly – the indestructible DC-3.

The DC-8 – and her more famous and successful competitor the Boeing 707 – launched the jet age as we know it in the late ’50s. In her glory days she was the world’s longestranged aircraft whisking well-heeled jetsetters across the globe.

But back to the present, before I can ride in this magnificent machine, which is kept in factory-newcondition, there is the small matter of a safety instruction.

This is not the three minute one that no-one takes notice of on an airliner.

I am at NASA and things are done differently and by the book.

Briefing started at 10. 30am and lasted an hour and involved a detailed Powerpoint presentation and then the fitting of oxygen hoods.

After the briefing we are taken out to the DC-8 for further instruction on board and to touch and feel the safety equipment.

By noon we are done and time for a quick snack before we have to be back on board.

Takeoff time is 2. 30pm which means on board an hour before.

Commander Ewers adds icing to my cake by inviting me to ride in the cockpit. Yes please! I get my portable oxygen/smoke hood which must be carried at all times and take my seat in thecockpit.

After a lengthy and painstaking list of preflight checks we are ready to reach for the skies.

While fitted with much of the latest hi-tech gadgetry the DC-8 is essentially a 1950s technology aircraft and this requires a lot of input from the three-man crew.

Our zero fuel weight is 157,450lb (71,500kg) and fuel load is 68,300lb (31,000kg) giving us a takeoff weight of 223,450lb (102,500kg).

Maximum takeoff weight for the Super 72 is 350,000lb (158,900kg).

Takeoff from KPMD – Palmdale – was on Runway 04 and we were airborne in just 20 seconds.

After takeoff a right turn had us climbing over the snow caped mountains surrounding LA, which is soon below us.

The city of freeways seems to spread for hundreds of kilometres.

The DC-8 is as steady as a rock and she climbs to 38,000ft.

Our cruise speed is between 0. 78‑0. 80 Mach or 460-470kt TAS with a fuel flow of 9,800lb (4,450kg)/hour.

Captain Fedors loves the DC-8.

“The DC-8 was the first aircraft I ever rode in as a wide-eyed kid, launching my interest in aviation, so it is a privilege to be able to fly it in 2015,” said Fedors.

“She is proven very reliable and adaptable to the science mission. ” “The robust structure makes it easy to modify and she is the best loved aircraft in NASA Armstrong’s fleet by both maintenance and aircrews. ” NASA pilots have given her the nickname of ‘Battleship Eight’.

It was time to launch the weather sensors built by Yankee Environmental Systems. Five are dispatched over 30 minutes and our mission was complete.

As our DC-8 gently rolls right towards San Francisco, Colonel Fedors reflects on the DC-8. “I came to the DC-8 after flying the KC-10 (USAF) and then the MD-80 (AA), so I’ve worked my way through Douglas’s fleet in reverse order, and it is interesting to see how aircraft design has evolved.

Fedors explains that the NASA DC-8 has been over both poles and around the world, it has proven very reliable and adaptable to the science mission.

“The robust structure makes it easy to modify, and the four relatively modern engines provide plenty of power to fix errors when flying at 1,000ft over Antarctic mountain ranges and comforting redundancy that would not be present in a two-engine aircraft when there is 2,000 miles of ice and Southern Ocean between you and your recovery base. ” “I would say that the DC-8 is probably the best-loved aircraft in NASA Armstrong’s fleet by both maintenance and aircrews. ” Fedors explains that the DC-8 has heavy flight control forces, resulting in more physical workload than with a modern aircraft.

Douglas kept the DC-8 wing sweep at 30 degrees verses 35 for the Boeing 707, in an attempt to make the DC-8 safer and to handle more like the

The DC-8 is probably the bestloved aircraft in NASA Armstrong’s fleet. COL FODORS

piston engine aircraft (DC-6 and 7) and make the transition easier for the pilots of the day.

“However, in my opinion the DC-8 flying qualities are much more similar to the Boeing 707 than the P-3 and C-130s that I’ve flown.

The reduced wing sweep does allow the DC-8 to fly slower than the Boeing 707 at altitude, and at least with CFM56 engines doesn’t reduce the cruise Mach (0. 78‑0. 82) appreciably. ” The DC-8 wing in fact was its Achilles heel.

According to Harold Adams, retired chief designer of the Douglas Aircraft Company, in 1955 calculations and wind tunnel test were not always accurate and the super-critical DC-8 wing, which promised Mach 0. 85 speed with only a 30 degree sweepback was untested in flight.

But as Adams told this writer in a 1998 interview: “If the supercritical aerofoil failed to live up to its promise, the drag could be higher than the drag of a conventional aerofoil and thus the drag rise on a 30 degree swept wing could start as low as Mach 0. 75. ” And this is exactly what happened.

A host of fixes were instigated to make good on the performance which gave the DC-8 the speed, range and payload promised but it was costly for Douglas as they only applied from ship 148.

Douglas had committed to a frantic production build-up to catch Boeing and ship 14 for Delta Airlines was rolled out before the DC-8’s first flight.

The earlier builds had to be modified – at Douglas’s cost.

The Super 60 DC-8s were a progression of that design work and those models were in a class of their own, and it was only the recent (2010‑13) fuel spike that saw many retired after many years as freighters. On control Fedors says the DC-8 wins out over the 707.

“While the DC-8 has hydraulically-boosted ailerons, something the 707 lacked, the roll control forces are still high, but lighter than the 707. The DC-8 has better control harmony than the 707. This is probably the area where the DC-8 flying qualities differ most from modern aircraft, as just about anything that came after the DC‑8/707 will have lighter roll forces. ” He adds that the rudder forces for the DC-8 are compatible with transport category aircraft, which tend to be high to avoid over-controlling. “Dutch roll damping is much better in the DC-8 compared to the 707. ” The DC-8 has five spoilers on the upper surface of each wing, these are used symmetrically as speed brakes for rejected takeoffsand landings and can’t be used in flight. When the landing gear is down, the outboard three spoilers are used to augment roll control with the ailerons. The DC-8 spoilers normally deploy during landing on main wheel spin up before the aircraft’s weight has been transferred to the landing gear. During landings in the DC-8, immediately after touchdown, the aircraft settles somewhat abruptly, making it more difficult to get a smooth landing. Later aircraft have spoiler logic that deploys the spoilers after the aircraft’s weight has been transferred to the landing gear, resulting in less drama at touchdown and smoother landings.

Far too quickly my own landing is approaching.

Another right turn and Palmdale bathed in a setting sun was on the nose of our DC-8.

Our commander performs an easycurved visual approach and you were left with the impression he could do it in his sleep.

But there was nothing sleepy about the landing drills on this DC-8.

Everything by the numbers.

Landing weight was 195,000lb (88,530kg), flaps 50 and VREF was 123kt.

The captain performed a visual approach on KPMD runway 04.

Touchdown was silky smooth as the sun sank behind the mountains.

He’s done this before! But how long can the DC-8 keep flying on for? In fact the limiting factor is the tyres.

It is NASA policy that only new tyres can be used and DC-8 tyres are no longer in production.

Staff suggest that the agency may have to review its policy and opt for re-treads to keep the Battleship Eight in operation.