New Methods to Subjectively and Objectively Evaluate Adverse Pilot Couplings

Abstract

Unmasking aircraft pilot couplings (APCs) prior to vehicle entry into service have been a long standing challenge in the aerospace industry. APCs, often only exposed through unpredictable or very specific circumstances, have arisen throughout the history of manned powered flight and have required stopgap “fixes” to ensure system safety once a problem has been identified. This paper describes two newly created novel tools, one objective and one subjective, to detect and analyze APCs. The Phase Aggression Criterion is the objective assessment method and, in the advanced form described in this paper, is capable of APC detection in near real time. The innovative Adverse Pilot Coupling Scale is a subjective assessment method for APCs experienced during completion of closed-loop tasks. Results from the application of both of these tools are presented as well as the very good correlation between them. Furthermore, the application of the tools to simulated flight-test data has shown how existing handling qualities mission task element courses and their associated performance tolerances can be inadequate when used to unmask the proneness of a pilot–vehicle system to APC.