Novel Real-Time Flight Envelope Monitoring System

The proposed innovation is an aircraft flight envelope monitoring system that will provide real-time in-cockpit estimations of aircraft flight envelope boundaries, performance, and controllability. The adaptable monitoring system will provide information on current and predicted aircraft performance and controllability, alerting the pilot to any aerodynamic degradation of the control effectiveness. This includes high angle-of-attack, heavy rain, in-flight icing encounters, environmental contamination of surfaces, and structural or battle damage. The real-time monitoring system measures the time-averaged and RMS control surface hinge moment from all aircraft aerodynamic controls. Control surface hinge moment is sensitive to the aerodynamic characteristics of the flying surface, including separation. These data are processed and information on the current and predicted future state of aircraft control (including asymmetric cases) is made available to the pilot or flight management system. As opposed to other single-point monitoring systems, the proposed system has the distinct advantage that it functions by measuring the integrated effect over the entire control surface. The use of real-time control surface hinge moment monitoring is an innovative and robust concept for predicting aircraft flight envelope boundaries and controllability.