Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Glasgow
Abstract
As part of the continuing programme of work and collaboration between the Defence
Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA) and Glasgow University (GU), the author was
invited to attend the final phase of flight simulation trials entitled ‘TWINS’ at DERA, Bedford; using the Advanced Flight Simulator (AFS) large motion system. The precise nature and details of the five-day trial are given in [1] but the main thrust of the trial was essentially divided into two areas:
1. The simulation of American Design Standard (ADS) Mission Task Elements (MTEs)
using a software image database of Coltishall airfield with the appropriate ADS-33
visual cues.
2. The simulation of a mission sequence based on the Haxton Down software image
database which comprised fourteen individual tasks. The tasks were either based on
ADS MTEs or Nap-of-the-earth (NOE) flight. A full description of the manoeuvre
elements is given in Appendix A of [1].
The inverse simulation package HELINV at GU contains a library of manoeuvres based both
on ADS MTEs and NOE flight. However, the manoeuvres are separate and individual and
until recently it was not possible to run a simulation of combinations of two or more
manoeuvres. A request was put forward to develop a method whereby it was possible to
choose several elements (MTE or NOE) from the manoeuvre menu and piece them together to form what has been termed a ‘mini-mission sequence’ and then inverse simulate the mission as a whole. This report describes that development and presents the results from several simulated mission runs