P.B.

COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

Development of Flight Control Systems

22209101031 S.Sathyanarayanan 7/23/2011

The aircraft control system can be basically classified into two types namely Mechanical and Electrical control systems. Here is a brief insight about the history and development of the various flight control systems which is basically two namely Fly-by-Wire and Autopilot systems.

In the early days, the flight control systems were fully mechanical. The mechanical
flight control systems, required pilots physical power and had delay in the reaction timings of the control structures. The delayed reaction time was not a problem in the early days, as the flight regimes were considerately subsonic, but as we set foot in the sonic and supersonic regimes, we required faster reaction timing and subsequently the power to activate the control structure became considerably high. Thus came the necessity for the development of sophisticated systems which reduced the delay timings and the pilots fatigue as well.

Mechanical Control Systems:

Mechanical or manually-operated flight control systems are the most basic method of controlling an aircraft. They were used in early aircraft and are currently used in small aircraft where the aerodynamic forces are not excessive. Very early aircraft, such as the Wright Flyer I, Blriot XI and Fokker Eindecker used a system of wing warping where no conventionally hinged control surfaces were used on the wing, and sometimes not even for pitch control as on the Wright Flyer I and original versions of the 1909 Etrich Taube, which only had a hinged/pivoting rudder in addition to the warping-operated pitch and roll controls. A manual flight control system uses a collection of mechanical parts such as pushrods, tension cables, pulleys, counterweights, and sometimes chains to transmit the forces applied to the cockpit controls directly to the control surfaces. Turnbuckles are often used to adjust control cable tension. The Cessna Skyhawk is a typical example of an aircraft that uses this type of system. Gust locks are often used on parked aircraft with mechanical systems to protect the control surfaces and linkages from damage from wind. Some aircraft have gust locks fitted as part of the control system. Increases in the control surface area required by large aircraft or higher loads caused by high airspeeds in small aircraft lead to a large increase in the forces needed to move them; consequently complicated mechanical gearing arrangements were developed to extract maximum mechanical advantage in order to reduce the forces required from the pilots. This arrangement can be found on bigger or higher performance propeller aircraft such as the Fokker 50.

Some mechanical flight control systems use servo tabs that provide aerodynamic assistance. Servo tabs are small surfaces hinged to the control surfaces. The flight control mechanisms move these tabs, aerodynamic forces in turn move, or assist the movement of the control surfaces reducing the amount of mechanical forces needed. This arrangement was used in early piston-engine transport aircraft and in early jet transports. The Boeing 737 incorporates a system, whereby in the unlikely event of total hydraulic system failure, it automatically and seamlessly reverts to being controlled via servo-tab.

Autopilot control system:

An autopilot is a mechanical, electrical, or hydraulic system used to guide a vehicle without assistance from a human being. An autopilot can refer specifically to aircraft, selfsteering gear for boats, or auto guidance of space craft and missiles. The autopilot of an aircraft is sometimes referred to as "George", after one of the key contributors to its development.

Development of Autopilot system:

In the early days of aviation, aircraft required the continuous attention of a pilot in order to fly safely. As aircraft range increased allowing flights of many hours, the constant attention led to serious fatigue. An autopilot is designed to perform some of the tasks of the pilot. The first aircraft autopilot was developed by Sperry Corporation in 1912. The autopilot connected a gyroscopic Heading indicator and attitude indicator to hydraulically operated elevators and rudder (ailerons were not connected as wing dihedral was counted upon to produce the necessary roll stability.) It permitted the aircraft to fly straight and level on a compass course without a pilot's attention, greatly reducing the pilot's workload. Lawrence Sperry (the son of famous inventor Elmer Sperry) demonstrated it two years later in 1914 at an aviation safety contest held in Paris. At the contest, Lawrence Sperry demonstrated the credibility of the invention was shown by flying the aircraft with his hands away from the controls and visible to onlookers of the contest. This autopilot system

was also capable of performing take-off and landing, and the French military command showed immediate interest in the autopilot system. Wiley Post used a Sperry autopilot system to fly alone around the world in less than eight days in 1933. Further development of the autopilot was performed, such as improved control algorithms and hydraulic servomechanisms. Also, inclusion of additional instrumentation such as the radio-navigation aids made it possible to fly during night and in bad weather. In 1947 a US Air Force C-53 made a transatlantic flight, including takeoff and landing, completely under the control of an autopilot.

Categories of Autopilot systems:

Instrument-aided landings are defined in categories by the International Civil Aviation Organization. These are dependent upon the required visibility level and the degree to which the landing can be conducted automatically without input by the pilot. CAT I - This category permits pilots to land with a decision height of 200 ft (61 m) and a forward visibility or Runway Visual Range (RVR) of 550 m. Simplex autopilots are sufficient. CAT II - This category permits pilots to land with a decision height between 200 ft and 100 ft ( 30 m) and a RVR of 300 m. Autopilots have a fail passive requirement. CAT IIIa -This category permits pilots to land with a decision height as low as 50 ft (15 m) and a RVR of 200 m. It needs a fail-passive autopilot. There must be only a 106 probability of landing outside the prescribed area. CAT IIIb - As IIIa but with the addition of automatic roll out after touchdown incorporated with the pilot taking control some distance along the runway. This category permits pilots to land with a decision height less than 50 feet or no decision height and a forward visibility of 250 ft (76 m, compare this to aircraft size, some of which are now over 70 m long) or 300 ft (91 m) in the United States. For a landing-without-decision aid, a fail-operational autopilot is needed. For this category some form of runway guidance system is needed: at least failpassive but it needs to be fail-operational for landing without decision height or for RVR below 100 m.

CAT IIIc - As IIIb but without decision height or visibility minimums, also known as "zerozero". Fail-passive autopilot: in case of failure, the aircraft stays in a controllable position and the pilot can take control of it to go around or finish landing. It is usually a dual-channel system. Fail-operational autopilot: in case of a failure below alert height, the approach, flare and landing can still be completed automatically. It is usually a triple-channel system or dual-dual system.

Fly-by-Wire control system:

Fly-by-wire (FBW) is a system that replaces the conventional manual flight controls of an aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals transmitted by wires (hence the fly-by-wire term), and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the ordered response. The fly-by-wire system also allows automatic signals sent by the aircraft's computers to perform functions without the pilot's input, as in systems that automatically help stabilize the aircraft.

Development of Fly-by-Wire system:

Electronic signaling of the control surfaces was tested in the 1950s. This replaced long runs of mechanical and hydraulic connections with electrical ones. The first non-experimental aircraft that was designed and flown (in 1958) with a flyby-wire flight control system was the Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow, a feat not repeated with a production aircraft until the Concorde in 1969. This system also included solid-state components and system redundancy, was designed to be integrated with a computerized navigation and automatic search and track radar, was flyable from ground control with data uplink and downlink, and provided artificial feel (feedback) to the pilot. In the UK the two seater Avro 707B was flown with a Fairey system with mechanical backup in the early to mid-60s. The program was curtailed when the airframe ran out of flight time.

The first digital fly-by-wire aircraft without a mechanical backup to take to the air (in 1972) was an F-8 Crusader, which had been modified electronically by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the United States as a test aircraft. Control was through a digital computer with three analogue backup channels. In the USSR the Sukhoi T-4 also flew. At about the same time in the United Kingdom atrainer variant of the British Hawker Hunter fighter was modified at the British Royal Aircraft Establishment with fly-by-wire flight controls for the right-seat pilot. This was test-flown, with the left-seat pilot having conventional flight controls for safety reasons, and with the capability for him to override and turn off the fly-by-wire system. It flew in April 197

Fly-by-Wire and Commercial Passenger Aircrafts:

The first fly by wire control system on first commercial aircrafts was operationally used in 1988 by airbus A320. Approved versions followed with A330/A340 and in 1955 Boeing Company introduced its first Fly-by-Wire system incorporated in BOEING-777 aircraft. Uptill now Airbus has produced more than 1300 fly by wire aircrafts of different configurations and types with more than 15 million flying hours. Today Fly-by-Wire is a proven technology and there hasnt any discussion on its safety and usefulness.

Fly-by-Wire and Military aircrafts:

The development of the Fly-by-Wire system of the military aircraft is unique and specific for each aircraft. Each aircraft had its own tech-tree with its own unique advancement. For example lets trace the tech tree of the mirage family.

The Mirage III fighter had electrically linked flight control on the yaw axis with mechanical back-

1956 MIRAGE III

up. The same system without back-up controlled the two inboard elevators as well. This was a single channel system on an aerodynamically stable platform Built on the same principle as the Mirage III, the

1959 MIRAGE IV

Mirage IV had electrically linked flight control (on three axes-pitch, roll and yaw) with mechanical backup on an aerodynamically stable aircraft. The Balzac created a unique situation in which the aircraft was aerodynamically unstable when transition-

1963 Balzac

ing from vertical to horizontal flight. During this phase, the orientation of the tail pipes was controlled by a three-channel fly-by-wire system. Stable aircraft with electrically linked flight con-

1967 Mirage F1

trols and mechanical back-up on the pitch and yaw axes. Introduced a duplet channel to the electrical linkages with an automatic testing of safeties. First aerodynamically unstable fighter jet with full fly-by-wire. Quadruplex system with four analog

1978 Mirage 2000

computers, full authority on three axes and no mechanical back-up. Back-up was performed by a single channel fly-by-wire system Falcon 20 serial number 1 was transformed into a flying test bed in order to perform tests related to es-

1978 Mystere Falcon 20 R

tablishing the rules and regulations of the airworthiness of future jets. The full fly-by-wire system allowed in-flight simulation of handling characteristics of different types of aircraft Dassault's fly-by-wire configuration advances yet

1986 Rafael

another step with the introduction of three digital computers with one analog computer as back-up.