Researchers will be evaluating the performance of the probe originally developed by Eagle Aeronautics of Hampton, Virginia, and redesigned by NASA for this phase. The probe will be tested in a flight environment and the results will be compared with a traditional NACA-style probe that was flown on the centerline instrumented pylon in 2012.

In addition to obtaining air data measurements underneath the F-15B, the probe will measure the strength of a shockwave generated from, as of yet, an undetermined part of the F-15B aircraft structure."You want to have minimal lag in your measurement system in order to accurately characterize the intensity of the shockwave," said Mike Frederick, NASA Armstrong principal investigator of the Eagle Aero Probe.

"With this probe, pressure changes are seen almost immediately because the pressure sensors are located within about four inches of the pressure ports on the nosecone. For comparison, on the F-15B nose boom, which has been used for air-to-air probing in the past, the pressure transducers are located back in the radome, approximately 15 feet behind the pressure ports." A later phase of the testing will be to install the probe on either the nose of the F-15B, or on one of NASA's F-15D aircraft based at Armstrong, Pauer said. The Eagle Aero Probe will replace the current nose boom during shockwave probing research flights, he added.