Preliminary Validation of the Wind Tunnel Based Flight Control System Evaluation Method

Abstract

As mathematical models of aircraft aerodynamics and rudder loadings always have to be built in the hardware-in-the-loop simulation, wind tunnel based flight control system (FCS) evaluation methods were proposed in order to test and evaluate the flight control systems under real aerodynamic and rudder loading environment. To validate the evaluation method, a wind tunnel based flight control system test was performed in a hypersonic wind tunnel facility. As the aircraft support rig in the wind tunnel is static, the aircraft angle of attack cannot be changed in this test. During the test, the elevator response, the lift force and the pitching moment were measured. By analysing the measured data, the elevator control performance of the pitch control system was determined, and the pitch angle was successfully predicted, but the open-loop pitch control performance was not determined. These results validate the feasibility of evaluating the elevator control performance and predicting the pitch angle of a FCS by the wind tunnel based FCS evaluation method.