A historical overview of high-temperature structural testing at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility

Major hot structure test programs conducted at NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility from 1960s to the present are reviewed with emphasis placed on the YF-12A flight load program, which included extensive experimental and analytical tasks. Analytical models of the YF-12A aircraft were generated using NASTRAN and FLEXTAB codes. Experimental data were generated from wind tunnel model tests, laboratory tests performed on the flight vehicle (including Mach-3 thermal simulation that involved heating the entire aircraft's surface after which the aircraft was returned to flight status), and flight tests.