Demonstration Maneuvers for Advanced Flight Control Configurations

Development of advanced flight control laws for aircraft is outpacing the evolution of the military flying qualities specifications. The use of task-tailored designs and extended flight envelopes has resulted in aircraft whose characteristics are on, or beyond, the edges of applicability of the current military standard for flying qualities of piloted airplanes. In addition, while the standard is comprehensive in scope, it is possible that external factors will influence the mission suitability of any aircraft design such that its overall flying qualities may be unacceptable, even if it passes individual criteria. The only final check of this suitability is via testing through a series of demonstration maneuvers. The proposed effort will review current flight testing and research methods to identify a limited set of maneuvers that will serve as a check of an aircraft's overall flying qualities. These maneuvers will be representative of actual flight mission elements and will include expected limits of desired and adequate performance, as required for flying-qualities evaluation. Unlike the single-axis, single-parameter criteria of the military standard, they will assure multi-axis operations.