Portable Aircraft Flight Test Instrumentation System

To test an aircraft in its operational environment, minimal changes must be made to either the aircraft or its environment. Areas in which such non-intrusive testing methods are needed include the study of the ship/rotorcraft aerodynamic interface, remote site flight testing, and gathering simulation validation data from routine flight tests. To meet these needs, a portable instrumentation package (PINS) will be designed in the Phase I effort. Specific technical objectives of the program are: to develop system requirements based on the data accuracy, resolution, and sampling rates needed far flying qualities and performance testing, to develop and evaluate options for access to the signals required from existing production and non-production sensors, and to perform an initial design study of the portable instrumentation system. The specific innovation in the PINS design lies in the use of inertial navigation system (INS) data, in the design of an easily installable air data system, and in the use of a specialized microprocessor controller which will control the entire data recording process. The microprocessor will further allow for other features such as on-line health monitoring, automatic data quality checking and a simplified user interface.