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NAN Summer 2022 Issue

In our first fully digital edition of Naval Aviation News, we highlight the Navy’s involvement in the biggest movie of the summer—and one of the highest grossing films of all time—“TOP GUN: Maverick.” Capt. Brian “Ferg” Ferguson shares his experience as the Navy’s technical advisor for the film on page 32, ensuring that the flying sequences were thrilling, technically accurate and safe for all involved. In what has become an annual feature in the summer edition of Naval Aviation News, the team at Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23 shares their latest advances in our special Strike Test News section beginning on page 55. On page 22, engineers at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) explain steps they have taken to make landing a helicopter in low visibility conditions safer using new software technology. A new flight control system for the CH-53K is showing results in helping the heavy-lift helo operate in degraded visual environments and increase its handling with even higher payloads, as discussed on page 24.

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The TOPGUN Legacy: Making Mavericks

The sun rises over Nevada. A rumble rolls across the desert, but it’s not the sound of a rare rainstorm. It’s two U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornets engaged in a close-range combat training exercise. One is the haze-grey color of fleet squadrons. The other sports desert camo with a red star on its tail, one of the paint schemes used by the Navy Reserve’s adversary aircraft squadrons to mimic those used by America’s adversaries.

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Collaboration Enhances Successful CH-53K Flight Control System

A full authority digital fly-by-wire Flight Control System (FCS) is one of many impressive capabilities setting the CH-53K King Stallion heavy lift helicopter apart from any other heavy lift aircraft. “Full authority” means the FCS provides all of the aircraft motion—not just supplementing the pilot for stability.

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Making History on USS Gerald R. Ford as Deployment Nears

USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is the first-in-class of the Navy’s newest generation of Ford-class aircraft carriers. It’s been nearly 40 years since the Navy has commissioned a new generation of aircraft carriers. With change comes history that has to be made. Ford has done just that.

With new technologies and advancements in multiple different systems compared to legacy class carriers, Ford is ahead of its time leaving the history in the past and paving its own future.

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Navy Engineers Make Helicopter Pilots’ Most Dangerous Job Safer

Landing a helicopter in low visibility environments is one of the most difficult tasks in aviation for a rotary-wing pilot; add weather like fog, wind or worse and aircraft recovery can be dangerous.

The very team who brought naval tactical aviation Precision Landing Mode (PLM) has now set sights on advancing capability and operational readiness for pilots flying legacy rotorcraft across the DOD.

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“Top Gun: Maverick” F/A-18 Super Hornet.

FRCSW Goes to the Movies Supporting ‘TOP GUN: Maverick’

It takes a lot to make a movie. In the case of Tom Cruise’s latest film, “TOP GUN: Maverick,” it took the artisans, engineers and staff of Fleet Readiness Center Southwest (FRCSW) to not only provide an authentic presentation of the aircraft used in the film, but also support for the filming itself.

FRCSW painted one of the film’s two F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter aircraft and led the installation design of the audio/visual (A/V) equipment fixed in the cockpit of an F-model Super Hornet used in the movie’s production.

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Strike Test News Special Section

Greetings from the world of developmental test at Air Test and Evaluation Squadron (VX) 23, based at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Our mission is to execute research, development, and test and evaluation of fixed-wing tactical manned and unmanned aircraft and it is an exciting time to be a Salty Dog. We’re working hard to increase capability and lethality for the Fleet testing new software for the F/A-18 Super Hornet and the EA-18 Growler, and the F-35 is poised to begin the Block 4 aircraft test program. We completed the MQ-25 Unmanned Aircraft System demonstration program with deck operations onboard a carrier, and now await delivery of the first flight test articles.

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