Handling quality criteria development for transport aircraft with fly-by-wire primary flight control systems

Abstract

The introduction of fly-by-wire primary flight control systems in certain categories of future transport aircraft, makes it highly desirable to initiate further studies into handling quality criteria for future guidance in system design and airworthiness certification. The handling quality criteria for such aircraft must be based on parameters which describe the combination of the aircraft and its closed-loop flight control system, Approach flight simulation and compensatory tracking, performed on a moving base flight simulator as applied to a conceptual jet transport developed around the relaxed static stability concept, is described. The frequency of the dominant mode of the pitch attitude control system and the effectiveness of the direct-lift-control-system were the parameters varied Results of the flight simulator experiment and a pilot-aircraft system analysis are discussed. In the literature proposed criteria (C -Response and the Pilot-in-the-loop criteria) are evaluated against simulator results obtained in this program.