RFRL Capabilities

Facilities and Location

The RFRL facility is located at the Starkville Municipal airport and encompasses over 90,000 square feet of enclosed laboratory space. The 35,000 square foot Raspet Flight Research Laboratory provides office and hangar space and houses the precision machine shop, an autoclave, the 5-axis mill/polisher, and lay-up room. The 55,000 square foot RFRL Annex building also provides office space, engineering bays and hangar space. In addition, it houses the 10'x55' autoclave, an oven, 2450 square feet of temperature and humidity controlled cutting and lay-up rooms, an aircraft assembly room, and a structural test room.

The location at Starkville Municipal airport provides ready access to a 5500' runway for flight operations. It is also a location that is out of the way of heavy air traffic areas and major population centers and provides adequate flight test space and reduced operational visibility.

The location in the vicinity of Mississippi State University provides ready access to engineering faculty, undergraduate and graduate students, and other research organizations that can team with or provide support to RFRL research operations.

Aircraft

The RFRL has a long history of flight research and continues to maintain a fleet of fixed and rotary wing aircraft, including:

Piper PA-30 Twin Comanche - Standard category aircraft used for flight research support, pilot proficiency, and undergraduate aeronautical education. Contains state-of-the-art avionics. Can be used for terminal area operations, single pilot IFR operations research.
Cessna 188 Agwagon - Research aircraft used for flying qualities investigations.
Hughes 369A/OH-6A Cayuse helicopter - Research aircraft used for several rotorcraft projects.
Grumman AA5B Tiger - One of a kind prototype aircraft used for flight research support, aeronautical education, and flight research projects.
Boeing PT-17/450 Stearman - Standard category aircraft used for flight research support and glider towing.
Caproni A-21J - Turbine powered glider used in the past for aeronautical research and currently being readied for acoustic sensor flight testing.
Cessna 319 - Use for flight research support and glider towing. Used in the past for STOL high-lift aerodynamic research.
MSU XV-11A Marvel II - First turbine-powered composite STOL aircraft. One of a kind prototype that can be retrofitted to investigate a range of low-speed aerodynamics and STOL phenomena.
Sweitzer 2-32 - Two-place glider that can be used as a test bed for low-speed aeronautical research requiring a low-turbulence, low-noise environment.