title: An experimental study of pilots' control characteristics for flight of an STOL aircraft in backside of drag curve at approach and landing.
abstract: In general, most vehicles can be modelled by a multi-variable system which has interactive variables. It can be clearly shown that there is an interactive response in an aircraft's velocity and altitude obtained by stick control and/or throttle control. In particular, if the flight conditions fall to backside of drag curve in the flight of an STOL aircraft at approach and landing then the ratio of drag variation to velocity change has a negative value (delta D/delta u less than 0) and the system of motion presents a non-minimum phase. Therefore, the interaction between velocity and altitude response becomes so complicated that it affects to pilot's control actions and it may be difficult to control the STOL aircraft at approach and landing. In this paper, experimental results of a pilot's ability to control the STOL aircraft are presented for a multi-variable manual control system using a fixed ground base simulator and the pilot's control ability is discussed for the flight of an STOL aircraft at backside of drag curve at approach and landing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Aeronautical Engineering, National Defense Academy, Yokosuka, Japan.
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ema
mesh_terms: D000054:Acceleration; D000401:Aircraft; D000531:Altitude; D003198:Computer Simulation; D006801:Humans; D008328:Man-Machine Systems; D013026:Space Flight