"SteveM8597" wrote in message
...
I thought the "AV" in AV-1 was for "air vehicle". I know there was
one that wasn't intended to go into service but did in the end. The
only one I know of that didn't was the "iron bird" that had different
landing gear, wasn't flyable, but was the same size and configuaration
as the production B-2. Could that be the one you are thinking of as
Northrop's aircraft?







The Iron bird was just that, a mockup of steel girders with much of the
flight
and mission hardware installed, and the whole thing was tied to a full
motion
simulator. Pretty awesome to see but not eactaly an airplane by any
stretch.
.There wre two static test articles built IIRC tail #s 1001 and 1002, or
maybe
2001/2. One is still at Plant 42 at Palmdale. the other at the AF Museum.

A simple shake of AV-1 was all that was required to validate the test rig
results.

It is the same reason Lockmart blocked a shake of the F-22 prior to
production, for it might have killed the program right then. (ie "buffeting"