What is it about?

The paper develops a mathematical model that describes the response of an aircraft to pilot action on elevator deflection, when the effects of fuselage and wing deformations are relevant. We try to provide a simple yet representative model that can be used for teaching and preliminary design purposes.

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Why is it important?

Aircraft dynamics and flight simulation have been based for almost a century on the hypothesis that an airplane is perfectly rigid. Hence 6 degrees of freedom, 3 displacement variables and 3 attitude angles, were sufficient for describing its dynamics. Many modern aircraft feature slender and deformable structural elements, which make accurate modeling much more difficult. A compromise between simulation fidelity and model complexity is thus important.

Perspectives

We think that simulation is achieving incredible results in terms of fidelity, but at the same time we still deem necesary to develop elementary approaches where a relation between system parameters and response is more evident than in extremly complex simulation scenarios, especially when simulation hinges on large scale models and black-box numerical tools.

Prof Giulio Avanzini
Universita del Salento

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Reduced-Order Short-Period Model of Flexible Aircraft, Journal of Guidance Control and Dynamics, August 2017, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA),
DOI: 10.2514/1.g002387.
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