This is a highly modified Convair C-131 Samaritan, the Total In-Flight Simulator. The aircraft is a variable stability research platform for investigating flight control designs with the test cockpit in the forward drooping nose and the safety cockpit in the production cockpit. But the aircraft is also capable of doing sensors research via a modular nose unit that replaces the test cockpit with a large bulbous radome nose. The aircraft was assigned to the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, but was operated and maintained by the Calspan Corporation out of Buffalo New York.
These images were taken on the Edwards AFB Transient Ramp in November 1984.
Just a few reinforcing straps behind the cockpit sides and atop the fuselage...
And one from the damaged slides box taken at Wright-Patt in 1979...
Thanks for looking,
Sven