A Study of the Spectral Gust Alleviation Factor

Abstract

A great deal of research effort is going into the measurement of turbulent air velocities in relation to aircraft flight. There is a continuing need to review our knowledge of aircraft responses to air turbulence in order to appreciate the significance of the new information as it becomes available and in order to demonstrate which parameters in the problem are of most importance and therefore deserving of the closest study.At the present stage of aircraft development we can see dramatic changes in aircraft speed, size and shape. Increased aircraft size, speed and height of operation imply larger values of the gust mass parameter μg than hitherto; they also mean that structural flexibility is becoming increasingly significant. Change of shape towards the slender configuration involves us not only in new appraisals of aircraft aerodynamics, steady and unsteady, but also in different modes of structural distortion from those typical of current subsonic turbojet transport aircraft.