Demonstration of aircraft dynamic stability and response for aeronautical engineering students

Extract

The teaching of aircraft stability and control at university usually progresses to the complexity of six degrees of freedom with a large array of aerodynamic, gravitational and inertial terms. It is therefore essential to ensure that students have a good grasp of fundamental dynamic characteristics such as damping and natural frequency, and any demonstration in which students observe aircraft motion is particularly helpful. At Manchester University this is achieved by a windtunnel demonstration of aircraft dynamic stability and response in pitch to a sinusoidal gust generator.