What is that little black thing tied to the vertical stabilizer?

Question

I have seen this on all Boeing test planes, does this provide information on the planes performance?

Already answered here and here, at least. – mins Jun 06 '21 at 11:00 — mins, Jun 06 '21 at 11:00

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 06 '21 at 15:53

19

That’s a trailing cone. It hangs out behind the aircraft and serves to calibrate the aircraft’s pitot-static system against static pressure error by providing a static source for ambient air pressure data in clean air well clear of the aircraft. The cone is connected to the aircraft by high-strength pressure tubing to feed the data to the aircraft.

edited Jun 06 '21 at 15:53

SwiftPushkar

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answered Jun 05 '21 at 23:34

MD88Fan

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What is that little black thing tied to the vertical stabilizer?

1 Answers1