Flight and simulation testing of the F-14 digital flight control system

摘要

The F-14 airplane is now well into its third decade as the United States Navy's front-line air superiority fighter.The aircraft is currently equipped with an irreversible hydro-mechanical lfight control system supplemented by a limited authority analog automatic flight control system (AFCS).This flight control system remains essentially unchanged from the original late 1960's design.A new digital flight control system remains essentially unchanged from the original late 1960's design.A new digital flight control system (DFCS) is now undergoing flight test at the Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft division,Patuxent River (NAWC-AD Pax River).The existing AFCS control laws and a set of NASA developed automatic rudder interconnect (ARI) control laws have been incorporated.In addition,a new set of flight control laws developed by NAWC-AD Pax River were incorporated to improve the lateral-directional flying qualities in the Power Approach (PA) configuration.Extensive use was made of the F-14 engineering simulation at NAWC-AD Pax River for design of the PA control laws as well as OFP software verification and validation,and flight test rehearsal.The F-14 simultion is very mature in its development.As a result of incorporating years of flight test data,the simulation provides very good fidelity throughout most of the flight envelope,including high angle of attack flight and departure characteristics.