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A multi-dimensional scale to assess aircraft handling qualities
Published in Don Harris, Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics, 2020
Don Harris, Katy Payne, James Gautrey
As noted previously, the handling qualities of an aircraft cannot be defined in isolation. They can only be defined with respect to a specific task. For example, an aircraft may exhibit exemplary behaviour in the landing flare but may have undesirable characteristics when the pilot is engaged in a longer-duration, high-gain task, such as air-to-air refuelling. There is a strong interaction between aircraft handling qualities and the task at hand. Similarly, different aspects of an aircraft’s behaviour will be important in different circumstances. For example, difficulty in trimming the aircraft quickly and precisely will be less of a problem on take-off or in the landing flare than it will be in the cruise. A directly analogous situation was faced by researchers into pilot workload in the early 1980s. Just like aircraft handling qualities, Hart and Staveland (1988) recognised that workload was a multidimensional concept and that there was an interaction between the type of task and the nature of the workload demands placed upon the pilot. This basic premise formed the basis of the format of the CAHQRS.
Boeing B-777: Fly-by-Wire Flight Controls
Published in Cary R. Spitzer, Uma Ferrell, Thomas Ferrell, Digital Avionics Handbook, 2017
The pitch control law incorporates several additional features. One is called landing flare compensation. This function provides handling characteristics during the flare and landing maneuvers consistent with that of a conventional airplane, which would have otherwise been significantly altered by the C*U control law. The pitch control law also incorporates stall and overspeed protection. These functions will not allow the referenced trim speed to be set below a predefined minimum value or above the maximum operating speed of the airplane. They also significantly increase the column force that the pilot must hold to fly above or below those speeds. An additional feature incorporated into the pitch control law is turn compensation, which enables the pilot to maintain a constant altitude with minimal column input during a banked turn.
Lateral-Directional Flight Dynamics and Control
Published in Nandan K. Sinha, N. Ananthkrishnan, Advanced Flight Dynamics with Elements of Flight Control, 2017
Nandan K. Sinha, N. Ananthkrishnan
The nonzero sideslip trim state can be solved by using the EBA framework. We can impose constraints on the flight path angle and bank angle—usually γ ≈ 0 during landing flare and ideally we would like ϕ = 0. Additionally, the sideslip angle is constrained to a value depending on the amount of crosswind. We shall demonstrate the procedure with the following constraints imposed: β=1.28deg;γ=0;ϕ=0
Stirring the Pot: Comparing Stick Input Patterns and Flight-Path Control Strategies in Airline Pilots
Published in The International Journal of Aerospace Psychology, 2018
Andreas Haslbeck, Hans-Juergen Hoermann, Patrick Gontar
The experiments were conducted in two certified, full-motion (FFS Level D) flight simulators, one Airbus A320 and one Airbus A346. For analysis, we divided the approach phase into three segments based on different altitude levels, also representing three different levels of difficulty. The first segment between 3,000 and 1,000 ft above ground level (AGL) represents the preparation of a stabilized approach (SKYbrary, 2016). This means acclimatization to manual flight with more tolerances to deviations from the ideal flight-path and medium difficulty (mean duration on A320 M = 158 s; on A340 M = 144 s). According to company rules, the approach had to be stabilized at 1,000 ft AGL, which subsequently means a more difficult task under instrument meteorological conditions until reaching 270 ft AGL (M = 58 s/52 s). During this second altitude segment the criteria for a stabilized approach apply; therefore, it is the most demanding part for the pilots as well as the most relevant one for the evaluation of manual skills. Passing the cloud layer at 270 ft AGL, the runway became visible, defining a visual approach of medium difficulty. This third segment ended at 50 ft above ground (M = 21 s/20 s) shortly before the landing flare was initiated.