Flying Qualities - Evaluation of Handling Qualities

Evaluation of Handling Qualities

The technique for the study of flying qualities requirements used by Gilruth was first to install instruments to record relevant quantities such as control positions and forces, airplane angular velocities, linear accelerations, airspeed, and altitude. Then a program of specified flight conditions and maneuvers was flown by an experienced test pilot. After the flight, data were transcribed from the records and the results were correlated with pilot opinion. This approach would be considered routine today, but it was a notable original contribution by Gilruth that took advantage of the flight recording instruments already available at Langley and the variety of airplanes available for tests under comparable conditions.

An important quantity in handling qualities measurements in turns or pull-ups is the variation of control force on the control stick or wheel with the value of acceleration normal to the flight direction expressed in g units. This quantity is usually called the force per g.

Read more about this topic:  Flying Qualities

Famous quotes containing the words evaluation of, evaluation, handling and/or qualities:

    Good critical writing is measured by the perception and evaluation of the subject; bad critical writing by the necessity of maintaining the professional standing of the critic.
    Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)

    Evaluation is creation: hear it, you creators! Evaluating is itself the most valuable treasure of all that we value. It is only through evaluation that value exists: and without evaluation the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators!
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Madam, a circulating library in a town is as an evergreen tree of diabolical knowledge; it blossoms through the year. And depend on it ... that they who are so fond of handling the leaves, will long for the fruit at last.
    Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816)

    Some good qualities are like the senses: Those who are entirely deprived of them can have no notion of them.
    François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)