Evaluation of Aircraft Performance and Maneuverability by Computation of Attainable Equilibrium Sets

Abstract

An aircraft's performance and maneuvering capabilities in steady flight conditions are usually analyzed considering the steady states of the rigid-body equations of motion. A systematic way of computation of the set of all attainable steady states for a general class of helical trajectories is presented. The proposed reconstruction of attainable equilibrium states and their local stability maps provides a comprehensive and consistent representation of the aircraft flight and maneuvering envelopes. The numerical procedure is outlined and computational examples of attainable equilibrium sets in the form of two-dimensional cross sections of steady-state maneuver parameters are presented for three different aircraft models.