Development of an advanced pitch active control system and a reduced area horizontal tail for a wide-body jet aircraft

The development of an advanced pitch active control system (PACS) and a reduced area horizontal tail for a wide-body jet transport (L-1011) with a flying horizontal stabilizer is discussed. The advanced PACS control law design objectives were to provide satisfactory handling qualities for aft c.g. flight conditions to negative static stability margins of 10 percent and to provide good maneuver control column force gradients for nonlinear stability flight conditions. Validity of the control laws were demonstrated by piloted flight simulation tests on the NASA Langley Visual Motion Simulator. Satisfactory handling qualities were actually demonstrated to a negative 20 percent static stability margin. The PACS control laws were mechanized to provide the system architecture that would be suitable for an L-1011 flight test program to a negative stability margin of 3 percent which represents the aft c.g. limits of the aircraft. Reduced area horizontal tail designs of 30 and 38 percent with respect to the L-1011 standard tail were designed, fabricated and wind tunnel tested. Drag reductions and weight savings of the 30 percent smaller tail would provide an L/D benefit of about 2% and the 38% small tail L/D benefit would be about 3 percent. However, forward c.g. limitations would have to be imposed on the aircraft because the maximum horizontal tail lift goal was not achieved and sufficient aircraft nose-up control authority was not available. This limitation would not be required for a properly designed new aircraft

Development of an advanced pitch active control system for a wide body jet aircraft

An advanced PACS control law was developed for a commercial wide-body transport (Lockheed L-1011) by using modern control theory. Validity of the control law was demonstrated by piloted flight simulation tests on the NASA Langley visual motion simulator. The PACS design objective was to develop a PACS that would provide good flying qualities to negative 10 percent static stability margins that were equivalent to those of the baseline aircraft at a 15 percent static stability margin which is normal for the L-1011. Also, the PACS was to compensate for high-Mach/high-g instabilities that degrade flying qualities during upset recoveries and maneuvers. The piloted flight simulation tests showed that the PACS met the design objectives. The simulation demonstrated good flying qualities to negative 20 percent static stability margins for hold, cruise and high-speed flight conditions. Analysis and wind tunnel tests performed on other Lockheed programs indicate that the PACS could be used on an advanced transport configuration to provide a 4 percent fuel savings which results from reduced trim drag by flying at negative static stability margins

Extended flight evaluation of a near-term pitch active control system

Fuel savings can be achieved by moving the center of gravity of an aircraft aft which reduces the static stability margin and consequently the trim drag. However, flying qualities of an aircraft with relaxed static stability can be significantly degraded. The flying qualities can be restored by using a pitch active control system (PACS). This report documents the work accomplished during a follow-on program (see NASA CR-165951 for initial program report) to perform extended flight tests of a near-term PACS. The program included flying qualities analyses, piloted flight simulation tests, aircraft preparation and flight tests to demonstrate that the near-term PACS provided good flying qualities within the linear static stability envelope to a negative 3% static stability margin