Open Access
Development and Flight Evaluation of an Emergency Digital Flight Control System Using Only Engine Thrust on an F-15 Airplane
TLDR
Results from a 36-flight evaluation showed that the PCA system can be used to safety land an airplane that has suffered a major flight control system failure and was used to recover from a severe upset condition, descend, and land.Abstract:
A propulsion-controlled aircraft (PCA) system for emergency flight control of aircraft with no flight controls was developed and flight tested on an F-15 aircraft at the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. The airplane has been flown in a throttles-only manual mode and with an augmented system called PCA in which pilot thumbwheel commands and aircraft feedback parameters were used to drive the throttles. Results from a 36-flight evaluation showed that the PCA system can be used to safety land an airplane that has suffered a major flight control system failure. The PCA system was used to recover from a severe upset condition, descend, and land. Guest pilots have also evaluated the PCA system. This paper describes the principles of throttles-only flight control; a history of loss-of-control accidents; a description of the F-15 aircraft; the PCA system operation, simulation, and flight testing; and the pilot comments.read more
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References
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Proceedings ArticleDOI
A simulation evaluation of a four-engine jet transport using engine thrust modulation for flightpath control
TL;DR: The use of throttle control laws to provide adequate flying qualities for flight path control in the event of a total loss of conventional flight control surface use was evaluated in this paper, where the results were based on a simulation evaluation by transport research pilots of a B-720 transport with visual display.
Piloted Simulation Tests of Propulsion Control as Backup to Loss of Primary Flight Controls for a B747-400 Jet Transport
John Bull,Robert W. Mah,Gordon H. Hardy,Barry Sullivan,Jerry Jones,Diane Williams,Paul Soukup,Jose L. Winters +7 more
TL;DR: A series of three piloted simulation tests have been conducted at Ames Research Center to investigate propulsion control for safely landing a medium size jet transport which has experienced a total primary flight-control failure as mentioned in this paper.
Preliminary Flight Results of a Fly-by-throttle Emergency Flight Control System on an F-15 Airplane
TL;DR: The principles of throttle-only control, the F-15 airplane, the augmented system, and the flight results including landing approaches with throttles- only control to within 10 ft of the ground are discussed.
Dynamic Ground Effects Flight Test of an F-15 Aircraft
TL;DR: In this article, the changes in the aerodynamic characteristics of an F-15 aircraft caused by dynamic ground effects are described and correlation curves are given for the change in aerodynamic coefficients.
Proceedings ArticleDOI
A preliminary investigation of the use of throttles for emergency flight control
TL;DR: In this paper, a preliminary investigation was conducted regarding the use of throttles for emergency flight control of a multiengine aircraft, including a light twin-engine piston-powered airplane, jet transports, and a high performance fighter.