NMX‑IRB‑30 / Rev 00 / aircraft development & integration / structure · stations · loads 2026 · Product Page

NMX-IRB-30 · ENGINEERED TO ORDER — IRON BIRD SYSTEMS INTEGRATION RIGS

The aircraft, laid out flat. True geometry, real lag, years before first flight.

Name: Iron Bird — Aircraft Systems Integration Rig
Brand: Neometrix

An iron bird is an aircraft's hydraulics, flight controls, landing gear and electrical power mounted on steel in the aircraft's own coordinates — and then flown, on the ground, for years before the airframe exists. The reason it works is geometry: move an actuator two metres and the pipe run shortens, the trapped fluid volume falls, the transient changes and the actuator answers faster than it ever will in flight. So every mount sits at true length and true height — which makes the structure an instrument, not a support: placed to airframe datum, and stiff enough under full actuator load that it never feeds back false data. Then the systems are commanded by real inceptors against hinge-moment load jacks, and the failures no one can fly — lost hydraulic system, jammed actuator, dead bus — are injected deliberately, repeatedly, on the ground. Equipment of this class has been quoted against a fighter development programme's iron-bird mechanical structure requirement; no delivered iron bird is claimed — the class is engineered to order.

Enquire — iron bird rigs Capability sheet (PDF)

Illustrative of the class — a large systems integration test rig in a tall clean test hall: a long rectangular skeletal framework of fresh grey-painted steel box sections on levelling feet with horizontal outrigger arms at intervals, long straight runs of stainless hydraulic tube and black hose carried on cable trays along its length, heavy machined mounting brackets bolted at stations along the frame, a walkway with fresh yellow handrail down one side, a glazed control-room window in the wall behind, clean light floor with a yellow line, no people and no readable markings

Fig · 01 Steel in the aircraft's coordinates — the pipe runs are the aircraft's own length, which is the whole point

Fidelity

true geometryreal lengths, real lag

Structure

to airframe datumstiff under full load

hinge momentsjacks against real actuators

Proves

the failuresinjected, not encountered

Status

engineered to orderquoted structure class

ISO 9001 / 14001 Engineered to order Aerospace structures & rigs Survey & alignment discipline Noida · India

Overview

Fly the systems before there is an aircraft.

A modern aircraft's systems are more likely to surprise you than its structure. The iron bird exists so that every one of those surprises happens in a hall, on a rig, where the cost is time — and not at altitude, where it is everything.

Illustrative of the class — close view of one actuator station on a steel test rig in a clean hall: a heavy machined steel mounting bracket bolted to a grey painted box-section frame member carrying a polished cylindrical hydraulic actuator on spherical bearing eye ends, two braided hydraulic hoses curving down to bright stainless tube unions, a slim linear position transducer clamped parallel to the actuator body, a second heavy bracket opposite forming a load-application anchor, fine instrumentation cables laced along the frame, no people and no readable markings

Fig · 02 One station — the bracket at airframe coordinates, the actuator, and the anchor that argues back with hinge moment

Geometry is the fidelity. A systems bench can prove a component; only an iron bird can prove the system, because so much of a system's behaviour lives in the distances between its parts. The length of a hydraulic run sets the trapped fluid volume and the line's compliance, and therefore the pressure transient when a valve slams and the lag before an actuator moves. The length of a cable run sets the voltage drop and the noise it picks up. Move things closer to save floor space and the rig starts flattering the design. So the aircraft is laid out flat, at full scale, and nothing is allowed to be convenient.

Which makes the structure the instrument. Every mounting station has to sit where the airframe puts it, surveyed to the aircraft's datum rather than to the rig's own convenience — and it has to stay there under load. An actuator working against a hinge-moment jack pushes back into its bracket with everything it has; if the frame flexes, the actuator's measured stiffness and rate include the rig's compliance, and the data quietly becomes optimistic. That is why the mechanical structure is engineered like a machine tool rather than a mezzanine — and why it is the scope this class is quoted for.

Then the failures. With everything real and connected, the rig can do what no flight test may: fail a hydraulic system and watch the reversion; jam an actuator or run it away to its stop; drop an electrical bus mid-manoeuvre; walk the control laws through their degraded modes, repeatedly, on instrumented record. Those tests are the reason the rig takes the shape it does — and the reason it keeps working long after first flight, clearing modifications and reproducing in-service defects for the life of the fleet.

Equipment of this class has been quoted against a fighter development programme's iron-bird mechanical structure requirement. No delivered iron bird is claimed: the class is engineered to order, and the record is stated as it stands.

Full-scale

Nothing made convenient

True runs, true heights — the aircraft's own volumes, transients and lags, not a bench's.

Stiff

The frame never lies

Mounts at airframe datum, deflection engineered out — because rig compliance shows up as system performance.

Fearless

Failures on purpose

Systems lost, actuators jammed, buses dropped — deliberately, repeatedly, where it costs only time.

Architecture

Build true, power up, fly, break.

The schematic follows the work — the structure surveyed to aircraft coordinates, the supplies brought up to aircraft standards, the systems flown against real loads, the failures injected — and the rig underneath: structure and stations, true runs, supplies, loads and control.

FIG · 03IRON BIRD ARCHITECTURE · STRUCTURE + STATIONS / TRUE PIPE & CABLE RUNS / HYDRAULIC & ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES / LOADS, CONTROL & DAQ

Fig · 03 Every surprise found here, where it costs only time

Arc · 01

Structure & Stations

Mounts to airframe coordinates, stiff under full actuator load — surveyed in, and designed to be re-stationed as the aircraft changes.

Arc · 02

True Pipe & Cable Runs

Aircraft lengths and routes, not rig convenience — the volumes and voltage drops that make the dynamics honest.

Arc · 03

Hydraulic & Electrical Supplies

Aircraft pressures, flows, voltages and power quality — with the filtration and conditioning the systems expect.

Arc · 04

Loads, Control & DAQ

Hinge-moment jacks, test command, full-channel recording — and a safe-stop chain that ends any run cleanly.

Standing up a systems integration facility? Send the systems list, the coordinates and the load cases — a clause-by-clause compliance matrix within two working days · [email protected]

Send tender spec

Specifications

Reference rigs, built to the coordinates.

The parameters below describe reference rigs. Frame envelope, station count, load-jack capacities, supply ratings and channel counts all follow from three givens: the aircraft's systems and their coordinates, the load cases the programme must demonstrate, and the failure matrix its certification authority expects to see exercised.

Illustrative of the class — the hydraulic supply end of a test rig in a clean plant room: a large fresh-grey hydraulic power unit with a rectangular reservoir, two electric motor and pump sets on machined baseplates, a bank of four vertical cylindrical accumulators in a steel rack beside it, a wall-mounted manifold block with rows of bright stainless tube connections and cartridge valves, twin filter housings with quick-release bowls, a control cabinet with its door closed and panel turned away, tidy overhead conduit, no people and no readable markings

Fig · 04 The supplies — aircraft pressure and flow, accumulators for the demand spikes, filtration the systems insist on

Where iron birds go wrong

Geometry compromised for floor space — runs shortened, components clustered, and every dynamic answer subtly optimistic. A frame that deflects — rig compliance measured as system compliance, actuator stiffness reported better than it is. Mounts set to the rig, not the datum — and no survey record to argue with later. Supplies that are not the aircraft's — a ground power unit with different impedance or a hydraulic supply with different stiffness, changing exactly the transients under study. Load jacks that fight the actuator — a loading system whose own dynamics contaminate the response it is meant to impose. Instrumentation added late — no room for transducers, cables strung as an afterthought. Failure injection improvised — unsafe, unrepeatable, and therefore uncertifiable. And a structure that cannot be reconfigured, on a programme whose aircraft will change every year for a decade.

So the discipline runs the other way. The layout is drawn from the aircraft's coordinates and surveyed in, with the survey recorded as a deliverable. The frame is analysed for deflection under the worst load case before a section is cut. Supplies are specified to aircraft standards and their quality is proven, not assumed. Load jacks are chosen and controlled so the article sees hinge moment and not the jack's own personality. Instrumentation, cable routes and access are designed with the structure. Failure injection is engineered in — switchable, safe and repeatable. And the whole rig is built on the assumption that it will be re-stationed many times, because it will still be earning its keep long after the aircraft it was built for has entered service.

Full specification — expand

System	Iron bird — full-scale aircraft systems integration rig: mechanical structure, mount stations, true routing, supplies, load application, control & acquisition
Governing Idea	Geometry is the fidelity — true pipe and cable lengths give the aircraft's own fluid volumes, transients, lags and voltage drops
Structure Rule	The structure is the instrument — every mount to airframe datum, stiff under full actuator load; a frame that deflects reports rig compliance as system performance
Our Quoted Scope	The mechanical structure and its mount stations — the part that decides whether the rig tells the truth
Systems Carried	Hydraulic power & distribution, flight-control actuation, landing gear & doors, fuel, electrical generation & distribution — as the programme requires
Supplies	Aircraft pressures and flows, aircraft voltages and power quality, filtration and conditioning; accumulators for demand spikes
Load Application	Hinge-moment jacks and reaction anchors — actuators worked as they will be worked in flight, without the loading system adding its own dynamics
Failure Injection	Engineered, switchable and repeatable — hydraulic system loss, jammed and runaway actuators, bus loss, degraded and reversionary modes
Control & DAQ	Test command and sequencing, full-channel acquisition at rates that resolve transients, and an independent safe-stop chain
Survey & Alignment	Stations set and recorded against the airframe datum — the alignment record is a deliverable, not a memory
Service Life	Designed for reconfiguration — endurance cycling, modification clearance, defect investigation and software rehearsal for the life of the fleet
The Split	The site's servo-valve test equipment and actuator test rigs prove one unit on a bench; assembly jigs hold structure to true geometry for build. This rig holds systems to true geometry for test
Scope Boundary	Ours: mechanical structure & mount stations, load-application fixtures & reaction structures, hydraulic & pneumatic supply and distribution, electrical distribution, pipe & cable routing to true geometry, control & acquisition integration, safety systems, installation, survey & alignment, commissioning, documentation, training, spares & AMC — including build to the customer's drawings and coordinates. Bought-in or customer-supplied: actuators, flight-control computers, avionics, instruments. The customer's: the aircraft's systems, its coordinates and its test programme
Status	Engineered to order — equipment of this class quoted against a fighter development programme's iron-bird mechanical structure requirement; no delivered iron bird is claimed

PDF · 1 page

Iron Bird Systems Integration Rig — Capability Sheet

Tender Response

Send systems list, coordinates & load cases — compliance matrix in two working days

Variants

One discipline, four rigs.

What changes is how much of the aircraft comes to the hall — one system, all of them, or the structure that will carry them.

Var · 01

Iron Bird Mechanical Structures

The frame, stations and reaction structure to airframe coordinates — surveyed, stiff, and built to be re-stationed. The quoted class.

Var · 02

Complete Integration Rigs

Structure with supplies, loading, control and acquisition — the whole facility delivered as one scope.

Var · 03

Sub-System Rigs

Landing-gear, flight-control or fuel-system rigs — one system at full scale where a whole iron bird is not warranted.

Var · 04

Reconfiguration, Loading & AMC

Re-stationing for modifications, added load jacks, DAQ upgrades, calibration, spares and support.

Applications

Wherever systems must be proven before they fly.

The programmes that cannot afford to learn in the air.

A · 01Aircraft development programmes

A · 02Helicopter & rotorcraft development

A · 03Unmanned aircraft systems integration

A · 04Defence research & design establishments

A · 05Systems houses & actuation suppliers

A · 06Fleet support & modification clearance

FAQ

Common questions.

Plain-language answers from the engineering team.

Q · 01 What exactly is an iron bird, and why build one?

It is the aircraft's systems, laid out flat on steel, at full scale. Take the hydraulic power generation and distribution, the flight-control actuation, the landing gear and its doors, the fuel system and the electrical generation and distribution — and instead of installing them in an airframe, install them on a rigid ground structure that reproduces the aircraft's geometry: the same distances between components, the same pipe lengths, the same cable runs, the same heights. Connect real inceptors and real flight-control computers. Add jacks that push back on the actuators the way the air will. You now have something you can power up and fly, on the ground, for years — typically well before the first airframe is complete. The reason to build one is simple economics and safety: systems integration is where modern aircraft programmes lose time, because the interactions between subsystems — a pressure transient here, a control-law interaction there, a failure that cascades — are exactly what component testing cannot reveal. Finding those on a rig costs an afternoon and a rewrite. Finding them in flight costs a test campaign, and can cost far more than that. So the iron bird is where the programme buys down its integration risk, and it is why serious aircraft programmes budget for one from the start.

Q · 02 Why does the rig have to reproduce the aircraft's geometry?

Because a shocking amount of a system's behaviour is stored in the distances between its parts. Consider a hydraulic line. Its length and diameter set the volume of fluid trapped in it, and fluid, for all its reputation, is compressible enough to matter: that trapped volume behaves like a spring, giving the line a compliance that combines with the actuator's mass and load to set the system's natural frequency, its damping and its response time. Shorten the run to fit a smaller hall and you stiffen that spring: the actuator answers faster, the pressure transient when a valve closes has a different shape and peak, and the resonances shift. Everything then measured is real — and belongs to a machine that does not exist. The same argument runs through the electrical system, where cable length sets voltage drop under load and influences noise coupling, and through the fuel system, where line lengths and heights set flow and priming behaviour. There is a second reason too: geometry brings routing reality — bend radii, clamp spacing, chafe points, access for maintenance — which is how iron birds routinely catch installation problems before anyone tries to fit the real thing into a real airframe. That is why the layout follows the aircraft's coordinates, and why the honest version of this machine is large.

Q · 03 Why is the mechanical structure the critical part?

Because it decides whether the rig tells the truth, and it is the one part that cannot be corrected in software afterwards. Two properties matter. First, position: every mounting station must sit where the airframe puts it, in the aircraft's own coordinate system, surveyed in and recorded — because the geometry argument above is only as good as the placement, and a station set to the rig's convenience quietly rewrites the system it holds. Second, and less obvious, stiffness. A flight-control actuator working against a hinge-moment jack develops its full design force, and every newton of it goes into the bracket and the frame. If that structure deflects even slightly, the actuator's commanded position and its achieved position differ by the rig's own springiness — and the measured stiffness, rate and frequency response of the system come out better than the aircraft will ever manage, because the rig absorbed part of the motion. Iron birds have been known to spend months chasing a control-law anomaly that was, in the end, the test rig breathing. So the structure is engineered like a machine tool: load paths analysed for the worst combined case, sections sized for deflection rather than stress alone, joints designed not to slip, foundations and levelling considered, and the whole thing proven by survey and by load test before a single system is connected. That is the scope this page's requirement asks for, and it is the right thing to be fussy about.

Q · 04 What can you test on a rig that you cannot test in flight?

The failures — which is precisely what has to be proven. Certification and safety cases are built on what the aircraft does when things go wrong, and there is no acceptable way to discover most of that at altitude with a crew aboard. On the rig, you can fail a complete hydraulic system mid-manoeuvre and watch the remaining systems take up the load and the control laws revert. You can jam an actuator, or command a runaway to its stop, and measure what the other surfaces do about it. You can drop an electrical bus, brown out a supply, or fail a generator and watch load shedding behave. You can walk through degraded and reversionary modes one after another, repeat any of them a hundred times to prove they are consistent, and instrument every channel while doing it. Two further categories matter as much: endurance — cycling actuation systems through a lifetime of duty in months, on the ground, where a failure is data rather than an emergency; and software — every flight-control software change of a programme's life can be rehearsed on the rig against the real hardware before it is ever loaded into an aircraft. That last one is why iron birds are kept alive for decades: the rig becomes the programme's permanent laboratory for anything the fleet does next.

Q · 05 How does this differ from your component test rigs and assembly jigs?

Three different jobs, and the boundary between them is exactly the point. The site's servo-valve test equipment and actuator test rigs work at component level: one unit on a bench, its own performance characterised precisely — flow, null bias, hysteresis, frequency response — against a controlled supply. That is indispensable, and it is deliberately isolated: the component is judged without the rest of the aircraft's opinions. Our assembly jigs and form-block tooling also hold things to true geometry, but for a different purpose — they hold structure in position while it is built, so parts are drilled and joined where the drawing says. The iron bird takes the geometry discipline of the jig and the measurement discipline of the bench and applies both to something neither can address: all the systems, together, at aircraft scale, being operated. Its questions are interaction questions — what does this system do to that one, what happens at the boundary, what does the whole aircraft's hydraulic supply do when three surfaces demand flow at once. Component benches prove the parts; jigs build the structure; the iron bird proves the aircraft's systems as a single machine.

Q · 06 What do you build, what is bought in — and what is claimed?

Divided honestly. What Neometrix provides: the mechanical structure and its mount stations — analysed for deflection under the worst load case, fabricated, surveyed to the airframe datum and designed for re-stationing; the load-application fixtures and reaction structures that let jacks impose hinge moments without adding their own dynamics; the hydraulic and pneumatic supply and distribution at aircraft pressures and flows with its filtration and conditioning; the electrical distribution; the pipe and cable routing to true geometry, with trays, clamping and access designed in rather than added later; control and acquisition integration and the independent safe-stop chain; installation, survey and alignment with the alignment record as a deliverable; and commissioning, documentation, training, spares and AMC — including build to the customer's own drawings and coordinates, which is how this class is invariably tendered. What is bought-in certified or customer-supplied: the actuators, flight-control computers, avionics and other aircraft equipment, and the precision instruments — integrated, never imitated. What is the customer's: the aircraft's systems, its coordinate scheme and its test programme. And the record, stated plainly: equipment of this class has been quoted against a fighter development programme's iron-bird mechanical structure requirement. No delivered iron bird is claimed; the class is engineered to order, station by station, around the aircraft it must reproduce.

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The aerospace test family from Neometrix.

Prove the component, build the structure, then fly the systems — engineered at our Noida facility.

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One unit on a bench, characterised precisely — the level below this rig.

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True geometry for building structure — the same discipline, a different purpose.

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Actuation proven at component level, before it joins the system.

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Get a quotation

Send the coordinates
and the load cases.

The projects desk replies within two working days with a clause-by-clause compliance matrix and a budgetary quotation. Write to [email protected] or use the form.

Enquire — iron bird rigs Capability sheet (PDF) +91 7777 876 876

ISO 9001 / 14001 ENGINEERED TO ORDER — IRON BIRD SYSTEMS INTEGRATION RIGS GEOMETRY IS THE FIDELITY · THE STRUCTURE IS THE INSTRUMENT · FAILURES ON PURPOSE ENGINEERED IN NOIDA · INDIA

The aircraft, laid out flat. True geometry, real lag, years before first flight.

Fly the systems before there is an aircraft.

Nothing made convenient

The frame never lies

Failures on purpose

Build true, power up, fly, break.

Structure & Stations

True Pipe & Cable Runs

Hydraulic & Electrical Supplies

Loads, Control & DAQ

Reference rigs, built to the coordinates.

Where iron birds go wrong

One discipline, four rigs.

Iron Bird Mechanical Structures

Complete Integration Rigs

Sub-System Rigs

Reconfiguration, Loading & AMC

Wherever systems must be proven before they fly.

Common questions.

The aerospace test family from Neometrix.

Aircraft Servo Valve Test Equipment

Aerospace Assembly Jigs & Form Block Tooling

Main Rotor Actuator Test Rig

Send the coordinates
and the load cases.

Similar Products

Share This Page

The aircraft, laid out flat. True geometry, real lag, years before first flight.

Fly the systems before there is an aircraft.

Nothing made convenient

The frame never lies

Failures on purpose

Build true, power up, fly, break.

Structure & Stations

True Pipe & Cable Runs

Hydraulic & Electrical Supplies

Loads, Control & DAQ

Reference rigs, built to the coordinates.

Where iron birds go wrong

One discipline, four rigs.

Iron Bird Mechanical Structures

Complete Integration Rigs

Sub-System Rigs

Reconfiguration, Loading & AMC

Wherever systems must be proven before they fly.

Common questions.

The aerospace test family from Neometrix.

Aircraft Servo Valve Test Equipment

Aerospace Assembly Jigs & Form Block Tooling

Main Rotor Actuator Test Rig

Send the coordinatesand the load cases.

Similar Products

Share This Page

Send the coordinates
and the load cases.