Our February 23, 2023 dinner at CBYC had a good turnout. Dinner was a delicious Mexican buffet. After dinner, President Chris Harshman conducted club business, after which I introduced our speaker, USAF Colonel (retired) Roy Martin.
Colonel Martin has a distinguished flying career, starting in Viet Nam, where he flew over 200 combat missions as an F-4 pilot. After this service he was admitted to and graduated from the USAF Test Pilot School. Following his military service he was a test pilot for Northrop for 32 years and retired as Chief Test Pilot from Northrop Grumman (West Region). During his career, he accumulated 11,000 hours in more than 70 types of aircraft.
His presentation was interesting. He described the process followed as Northrop experimented with an F-5E, modifying the design, to ‘quiet’ the noise signature of the sonic boom created by the jet. How was this done? The nose of the supersonic F5 tactical jet ‘testbed’ that was being used was enlarged, giving it more of a bulge underneath (similar to a pelican’s pouch) under the cockpit. This affected the airflow created a quieter sonic boom in the process. For more info on this project, go to
https://www.nasa.gov/connect/ebooks/nasa-ebook-quieting-the-boom
- John Mahany