eVTOL Aircraft Subscale Disturbance Response Testing for Full-sized Vehicle Qualification

Advanced air mobility (AAM) seeks to develop a large-scale transportation system to revolutionize how people live and work in this century. Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft will form a central part of the AAM infrastructure due to reduced emissions and noise impact. An important aspect for eVTOL aircraft certification is safe urban operations, which requires understanding of the response due to aerodynamic disturbances. Experimental data are required to support eVTOL aircraft development with respect to flight dynamics and controllability, as well as design specification development. To this end, Continuum Dynamics, Inc. with teaming partners Pennsylvania State University and Alaka'i Technologies proposes to develop a subscale testing methodology for assessing eVTOL aircraft disturbance response / rejection characteristics including validation with similar data obtained for full-sized aircraft flight tests. In Phase I, scaling relationships for flight dynamics/control, aerodynamic interactions, and propulsion-airframe integration will be identified from comprehensive analytical models. A subscale dynamic model will be fabricated and tested in an indoor facility to quantitatively measure response characteristics in aerodynamic disturbances. Subscale data will be compared with model predictions and available full-sized vehicle data, which will be used to form experimental test plans for execution during follow-on work.