Estimating Handling Qualities Ratings from Hover Flight Data Using SCOPE

摘要

ADS-33 provides handling qualities specifications for rotorcraft flight control design. Compliance is verified through flight test system identification and Mission Task Element (MTE) demonstration maneuvers. Previous work by the author examining four different manual control tasks has indicated that pilot workload is effectively a logarithmic function of tracking error rate and control rate. This approach, called the Spare Capacity Operations Estimator (SCOPE), is extended to flight and handling qualities data collected for the Hover MTE using the U.S. Army's JUH-60A RASCAL aircraft. Attitude and Rate Command response types as well as various force-feel configurations were tested. A method is proposed for mapping Handling Qualities Ratings (HQR) to flight data performance and the workload estimate, thus easing the requirement that test maneuvers are flown by a pilot trained in HQ evaluation. Applying this approach to the hover maneuver produced good correlation between actual and estimated HQ ratings over varying inceptor feel system dynamics and aircraft response types (Attitude and Rate Command). Comparing data for the Hover MTE with the Slalom MTE, it is shown how higher frequency aircraft motion can be accounted for when estimating HQR using SCOPE.