Transonic Pitch Damping of a Delta Wing Aircraft Determined from Flight Measurements

摘要

A flight investigation aimed mainly at determining the pitch damping of a 60 degree Delta wing aircraft between M = 0.7 and M = 1.2 has been undertaken. Flight tests were conducted by ARDU and the measurements obtained have been successfully analysed at ARL using a modified Newton-Raphson parameter estimation procedure. The results for pitch damping as well as other longitudinal aerodynamic derivatives have been compared with wind tunnel and/or theoretical estimates. Further information has also been gained relating to the necessary conditions for successful extraction of parameters from flight data. The parameter estimation procedure has proved to be an effective analysis method even when only a modest amount of flight data, obtained using a relatively simple instrumentation package, has been available. (Author)