Ground vibration test and flutter analysis of air sampling probe

The Dryden Flight Research Facility of NASA Ames Research Center conducted a ground vibration test and a flutter analysis of an air sampling probe that was to be mounted on a Convair 990 airplane. The probe was a steel, wing-shaped structure used to gather atmospheric data. The ground vibration test was conducted to update the finite-element model used in the flutter analysis. The analysis predicted flutter speeds well outside the operating flight envelope of the Convair 990 airplane.