The first human-powered flight was achieved by a canard-configured aircraft (Wright Brothers). Although other canard concepts were flown with varying degrees of success over the years, the tail-aft configuration has dominated the aircraft market for both military and civil use. Reviewed are the development of several canard aircraft with emphasis on stability and control, handling qualities, and operating problems. The results show that early canard concepts suffered adversely in flight behavior because of a lack of understanding of the sensitivities of these concepts to basic stability and control principles. Modern canard designs have been made competitive with tail-aft configurations by using appropriate handling qualities design criteria.

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A Look at Handling Qualities of Canard Configurations

A flight test program was performed by DFVLR utilizing the HFB 320 in-flight simulator to investigate flying qualities problems associated with the relaxation of natural longitudinal static stability. The main objective of this research program was to investigate the influence of e.g. position on landing approach flying qualities. The static margin was varied from 14 to -10% mean aerodynamic chord (MAC) by rearward translation of the e.g. In addition, the influence of pitch damping and pitch control effectiveness on the flying qualities of an unstable aircraft configuration was studied. Nine configurations were evaluated by four pilots, who flew a total of 181 landing approaches under different natural atmospheric conditions. Cooper-Harper pilot ratings and special effort ratings, as well as statistical values computed from measured performance data of the pilot aircraft system, are presented as a function of the parameters varied and the turbulence intensity.

Landing approach handling qualities of transport aircraft with relaxed static stability

Flying quality requirements are specified in terms of the complete pilot-airframe-systems loop, the task, and the environment. Results from a study of flying qualities are reported. A review of the treatment of failure cases in various flying quality requirements is presented along with a description of the methods used and relevant lessons learned from recent Autoland certification programs.

Advanced control technology and airworthiness flying qualities requirements

: TRANSPORT PLANES), APPROACH, FLIGHT SIMULATORS, STABILITY, INSTRUMENT FLIGHT, PILOTS, REACTION(PSYCHOLOGY), AVIATION SAFETY, GROUND EFFECT*LONGITUDINAL STABILITY, TOUCHDOWN, EVALUATIONAn in-flight simulation to investigate minimum longitudinal stability for large delta-wing transports in landing approach and touchdown (including ground effect) was conducted using the USAF/Calspan Total In-Flight Simulator (TIFS) airplane. Aerodynamic, inertial and control data for this class of airplane were obtained from a prototype Concorde package supplied by the FAA. The simulation program involved the examination of 20 configurations by four evaluation pilots. The configurations evaluated were based upon a systematic variation of the longitudinal stability characteristics for this class of airplane. These variations were designed to examine the influence of pitch stiffness, backsideness, pitch damping and nonlinear pitching moment effects on pilot acceptability of minimum longitudinal stability for the landing approach task. A total of 61 evaluations was performed.

John F. Mitchell

Papers

In-Flight Simulation of Minimum Longitudinal Stability for Large Delta- Wing Transports in Landing Approach and Touchdown. Volume 1. Technical Results