Part II Flight Development

Extract

In the first part of this paper the theoretical considerations underlying the design of an automatic control system for helicopters have been discussed This second part describes some flight experiments carried out at R A E , Farnborough In addition to demonstrating the validity of the theory presented, there has emerged from the flying a clear conception of the design features needed in a practical system for every day use by the average helicopter pilot

One of the more interesting aspects of the experimental programme has been in the fact that the results were achieved almost entirely from flight tests At the time when this work was commenced, aerodynamic information of the test aircraft was scanty Thus whilst the theoretical form of the control law was known, the optimum values of the control parameters could only be roughly forecasted and the actual values were obtained in flight