Yeah, I just skimmed the video, and that aircraft is one generation behind the current design. It was a good aircraft! The new one looks very similar externally, just a lot more optimized internally.
One of the sound bits I heard while skimming was that the recovery system misses 10% of the time. We've dialed it in to be considerably better since then. I'm going to forward that timestamp to a particular coworker and see if it causes his eye to twitch... :-)
Man that's such a cool job/place to work. I was curious, I don't know if you can answer this or if it's public info.
Do the aircraft boards/computer get tied to some kind of simulator and (autonomously) fly around/run the actual control surfaces (in reality) as it flies in the simulation that would be neat. Although it might not make sense.
Yep, that's a thing. It's called "hardware in the loop". There are indeed control surface servo motors plugged in, and they move around to wherever the flight computer commands them to based on what the simulated vehicle is doing. Unlike a real vehicle, though, the boards and wire harnesses are quite a bit messier. All the important wires run through additional equipment so that folk can automate tests where things break.
One thing that we don't have plugged in normally is the propulsion motors. The noise would be rather obnoxious considering the HIL setups are in the office. Also,
I believe we still omit the wing tip LEDs; not only would they be obnoxiously bright, but they would melt themselves for lack of actual airflow!
One of the sound bits I heard while skimming was that the recovery system misses 10% of the time. We've dialed it in to be considerably better since then. I'm going to forward that timestamp to a particular coworker and see if it causes his eye to twitch... :-)