The Effects of Introducing a Restoring Moment Proportional to Stick Velocity on the Hovering of an Unstabilised Jet-Lift Aircraft

Summary

This paper covers an investigation into a new way of assisting the pilot to hover an unstabilised jet-lift aircraft. In a normal control system the aircraft is controlled by a moment which varies linearly with stick position. In this paper control systems were considered in which the controlling moment was a linear function of the position and rate of change of position of the stick. The investigation was primarily limited to optimising such a system with freedom restricted to rolling motion and the associated lateral displacement. Effects of limited control power and engine failure were considered. With the optimum control the mean errors in position recorded when hovering were under half those achieved with a normal manual control and the results were almost as good as for an ideal rate-stabilised aircraft. Extending the investigation to both pitch and roll planes led to an even greater improvement, even when the effects of gyroscopic coupling between the two planes were taken into account. The precise engineering of a “mixed” control system of the type discussed needs much thought and it will require considerable development, but the results achieved indicate that it may prove an attractive alternative to an autostabiliser