The faculty/student research team at the Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), Department of Engineering has built a full-scale helicopter flight simulator with a moving platform that can be used to simulate an actual helicopter in flight. The purpose of this research is to use the newly developed CCSU helicopter flight simulator as a basic design tool to produce practical flight test documentation. This information includes helicopter flight qualities and flight performance test data that can be used as teaching guides to educate CCSU faculty and students on helicopter operation. The instrumented test parameters include the pilot controls, engine shaft horsepower, rotor torque, rotor thrust, airspeed, altitude, rotor rpm, and rate of climb. Critical test parameters are monitored on-line and concurrently displayed on a screen on the wall for visualization to enhance flight safety. Test results indicate that the maximum forward speed of the flight simulator is limited to 149 kts using twin engines at maximum continuous power as one of the flight limits. The more the pilot collective control inputs to the rotor system, the more engine shaft horsepower is needed to fly the simulator. Also, the higher the aircraft forward speed is, the more the longitudinal cyclic control stick is required to move forward. Results also show that pilot can pull significant amount of transient power above the maximum continuous power before the blade reaches the stall. Pilot skill is found to be an extremely important factor in providing accurate and successful test data for this project.
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