Definition
In aeronautics, aircraft flight mechanics is the study of the forces that act on an aircraft in flight, and the way the aircraft responds to those forces.
Aircraft flight mechanics are relevant to gliders, helicopters and aeroplanes.
An Aeroplane (Airplane in US usage), is defined as: a power-driven heavier than air aircraft, deriving its lift chiefly from aerodynamic reactions on surface which remain fixed under given conditions of flight. (ICAO Document 9110)
Straight and Level Flight of Aircraft
In flight, an aircraft can be considered as being acted on by four forces: lift, weight, thrust, and drag. Thrust is the force generated by the engine and acts along the engine's thrust vector. Lift acts perpendicular to the vector representing the aircraft's velocity relative to the atmosphere. Drag acts parallel to the aircraft's velocity vector, but in the opposite direction because drag resists motion through the air. Weight acts through the aircraft's centre of gravity, towards the centre of the Earth.
In straight and level flight, lift is approximately equal to weight. In addition, if the aircraft is not accelerating, thrust is approximately equal to drag.
In straight, climbing flight, lift is less than weight. At first, this seems incorrect because if an aircraft is climbing it seems lift must exceed weight. When an aircraft is climbing at constant speed it is its thrust that enables it to climb and gain extra potential energy. Lift acts perpendicular to the vector representing the velocity of the aircraft relative to the atmosphere, so lift is unable to alter the aircraft's potential energy or kinetic energy. This can be seen by considering an aerobatic aircraft in straight vertical flight - one that is climbing straight upwards (or descending straight downwards). Vertical flight requires no lift! When flying straight upwards the aircraft can reach zero airspeed before falling earthwards - the wing is generating no lift and so does not stall. In straight, climbing flight at constant airspeed, thrust exceeds drag.
In straight, descending flight, lift is less than weight. In addition, if the aircraft is not accelerating, thrust is less than drag. In turning flight, lift exceeds weight and produces a load factor greater than one, determined by the aircraft's angle of bank.
Aircraft control and movement
There are three primary ways for an aircraft to change its orientation relative to the passing air. Pitch (movement of the nose up or down), Roll (rotation around the longitudinal axis, that is, the axis which runs along the length of the aircraft) and Yaw (movement of the nose to left or right.) Turning the aircraft (change of heading) requires the aircraft firstly to roll to achieve an angle of bank; when the desired change of heading has been accomplished the aircraft must again be rolled in the opposite direction to reduce the angle of bank to zero.
Aircraft control surfaces
Yaw is induced by a moveable rudder, attached to a vertical fin usually at the rear of the aircraft. Sometimes the entire fin is movable. Movement of the rudder changes the size and orientation of the force the vertical surface produces. Since the force is created a distance behind the centre of gravity this sideways force causes a yawing motion. On a large aircraft there may be several independent rudders on the single fin for both safety and to control the inter-linked yaw and roll actions.
It should be realized that using yaw alone is not a very efficient way of executing a level turn in an aircraft and will result in some sideslip. A precise combination of bank and lift must be generated to cause the required centripetal forces without producing a sideslip.
Pitch is controlled by the rear part of the tailplane's horizontal stabilizer being hinged to create an elevator. By moving the elevator control backwards the pilot moves the elevator up (a position of negative camber) and the downwards force on the horizontal tail is increased. The angle of attack on the wings increased so the nose is pitched up and lift is generally increased. In micro-lights and hang gliders the pitch action is reversed - the pitch control system is much simpler so when the pilot moves the elevator control backwards it produces a nose-down pitch and the angle of attack on the wing is reduced.
Roll is controlled by movable sections on the trailing edge of the wings called ailerons. The ailerons move differentially - one goes up as the other goes down. The difference in camber of the wing cause a difference in lift and thus a rolling movement. As well as ailerons, there are sometimes also spoilers - small hinged plates on the upper surface of the wing, originally used to produce drag to slow the aircraft down and to reduce lift when descending. On modern aircraft, which have the benefit of automation, they can be used in combination with the ailerons to provide roll control.
The earliest powered aircraft built by the Wright brothers did not have ailerons. The whole wing was warped using wires. Wing warping is efficient since there is no discontinuity in the wing geometry. But as speeds increased unintentional warping became a problem and so ailerons were developed.
Cockpit controls
Primary controls
Generally the primary cockpit controls are arranged as follows:
- A control column or a control yoke attached to a column—for roll and pitch, which moves the ailerons when turned or deflected left and right, and moves the elevators when moved backwards or forwards
- Rudder pedals to control yaw, which move the rudder; left foot forward will move the rudder left for instance.
- Throttle controls to control engine speed or thrust for powered aircraft.
Secondary controls
In addition to the primary flight controls for roll, pitch, and yaw, there are often secondary controls available to give the pilot finer control over flight or to ease the workload. The most commonly-available control is a wheel or other device to control elevator trim, so that the pilot does not have to maintain constant backward or forward pressure to hold a specific pitch attitude (other types of trim, for rudder and ailerons, are common on larger aircraft but may also appear on smaller ones). Many aircraft have wing flaps, controlled by a switch or a mechanical lever or in some cases are fully automatic by computer control, which alter the shape of the wing for improved control at the slower speeds used for takeoff and landing. Other secondary flight control systems may be available, including slats, spoilers, air brakes and variable-sweep wings.
Basic flight control systems
Mechanical or manually-operated flight control systems are the most basic method of controlling an aircraft. They were used in early aircraft and are currently used in small aircraft where the aerodynamic forces are not excessive. Very early aircraft used a system of wing warping where no control surfaces were used. A manual flight control system uses a collection of mechanical parts such as rods, cables, pulleys and sometimes chains to transmit the forces applied to the cockpit controls directly to the control surfaces. Turnbuckles are often used to adjust control cable tension. The Cessna Skyhawk is a typical example of an aircraft that uses this type of system. Gust locks are often used on parked aircraft with mechanical systems to protect the control surfaces and linkages from damage from wind. Some aircraft have gust locks fitted as part of the control system.
Hydromechanical: The complexity and weight of mechanical flight control systems increase considerably with the size and performance of the aircraft. Hydraulic power overcomes these limitations. With hydraulic flight control systems, aircraft size and performance are limited by economics rather than a pilot's strength. Initially only partially boosted systems were used in which the pilot could still feel some of the aerodynamic loads on the surfaces (feedback).
A stick shaker is a device (available in some hydraulic aircraft) which is fitted into the control column which shakes the control column when the aircraft is about to stall. Also in some aircraft like the DC-10 there is a backup electrical power supply which the pilot can turn on to re-activate the stick shaker in case the hydraulic connection to the stick shaker is lost.
A fly-by-wire (FBW) system actually replaces manual control of the aircraft with an electronic interface. The movements of flight controls are converted to electronic signals, and flight control computers determine how to move the actuators at each control surface to provide the expected response. The actuators are usually hydraulic, but electric actuators are also used.
Fly-by-optics is sometimes used instead of fly-by-wire because it can transfer data at higher speeds, and it is immune to electromagnetic interference. In most cases, the cables are just changed from electrical to fiber optic cables. Sometimes it is referred to as "Fly-by-light" due to its use of Fiber Optics. The data generated by the software and interpreted by the controller remain the same.
A newer flight control system, called Intelligent Flight Control System (IFCS), is an extension of modern digital fly-by-wire flight control systems. The aim is to intelligently compensate for aircraft damage and failure during flight, such as automatically using engine thrust and other avionics to compensate for severe failures such as loss of hydraulics, loss of rudder, loss of ailerons, loss of an engine, etc. Several demonstrations were made on a flight simulator where a Cessna-trained small-aircraft pilot successfully landed a heavily-damaged full-size concept jet, without prior experience with large-body jet aircraft. This development is being spearheaded by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center. It is reported that enhancements are mostly software upgrades to existing fully computerized digital fly-by-wire flight control systems
Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License and Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.)
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