Crash Test of Three Cessna 172 Aircraft at NASA Langley Research Center's Landing and Impact Research Facility

During the summer of 2015, three Cessna 172 aircraft were crash tested at the Landing and Impact Research Facility (LandIR) at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). The three tests simulated three different crash scenarios. The first simulated a flare-to-stall emergency or hard landing onto a rigid surface such as a road or runway, the second simulated a controlled flight into terrain with a nose down pitch on the aircraft, and the third simulated a controlled flight into terrain with an attempt to unsuccessfully recover the aircraft immediately prior to impact, resulting in a tail strike condition. An on-board data acquisition system captured 64 channels of airframe acceleration, along with acceleration and load in two onboard Hybrid II 50th percentile Anthropomorphic Test Devices, representing the pilot and co-pilot. Each test contained different airframe loading conditions and results show large differences in airframe performance. This paper presents test methods used to conduct the crash tests and will summarize the airframe results from the test series.