On the stability of flexible aircraft

Abstract

The problem of aircraft stability has been a subject of concern since the beginnings of flight. Traditionally, aircraft stability has been treated within the confines of two separate disciplines, namely, flight dynamics and aeroelasticity. Based on some recent developments in the dynamics and control of flexible aircraft, this investigation uses the system concept to provide a broader approach to aircraft stability in an attempt to bridge the gap between stability as understood in flight dynamics and stability as envisioned in aeroelasticity. To this end, stability is studied in the following four cases: 1) dynamics of whole flexible aircraft using the unified formulation, 2) flight dynamics of quasi-rigid aircraft (aircraft treated as rigid), 3) aeroelasticity of flexible components, such as cantilever wing, cantilever horizontal stabilizer, etc., and 4) aeroelasticity of restrained flexible aircraft (aircraft fixed to a point, hence, having no rigid body degrees of freedom). The paper also presents a method to address the stability of flexible aircraft when the compressibility correction factor is known only at some discrete Mach numbers.