Flight testing of a light airplane using a low-cost flight test instrumentation system – an approach for system identification

Dimas A. Dutra, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil

Abstract

This paper documents the flight test campaign, and its results, of the ACS-100 Sora, a light experimental airplane in production by the Brazilian company Advanced Composite Solutions and based on a design by the Federal University of Minas Gerais' (UFMG) Center for Aeronautical Studies (CEA). This aircraft is part of an ongoing research project, at UFMG, in personal aviation, which aims to develop a pilot assisted airplane.

As part of this project, a piloting aid automatic controller, to allow the pilot direct control over the aircraft's path, is being developed, together with a flight simulator.

The main goals of the flight test campaign were to evaluate performance, safety and identify aerodynamic parameters for the programming of the flight simulator and tuning of the piloting aid controllers. Such tests are rarely performed on this class of aircraft, and the commercial flight test instrumentation (FTI) systems are either inappropriate for the task or too expensive, so an in-house developed FTI, under continuous improvement, was used.

We report here the planning of campaign; describe the FTI system and its architecture; and describe the estimation and validation of the flight mechanics models identified. Independent models were identified for the short-period and lateral-directional modes and compliance was demonstrated for some of the FAA flight simulator requirements, as defined in the 14 CFR Part 60.