Computer Simulation of Selected Failure Modes and Operational Conditions for Rotorcraft

Safety is the premier goal in aviation. It is the heart of any transportation system. Without safety, the benefits of the most sophisticated aircraft or aviation technology are lost. Aircraft certification has yielded major advances in aviation safety for decades. As aircraft have become more advanced and the aviation community learns better ways of ensuring safety, additional tests and requirements have been added. The purpose of aircraft certification is to ensure that a given aircraft is initially safe to fly and will continue to be safe if certain operating and maintenance limitations and procedures are followed. Technology advances and economic pressures are rapidly transforming aviation into a fully integrated, but very complex system; thus, making it more difficult for examining complex behaviors in the “pilot - vehicle - operational conditions” system. Modeling and simulation has become one of the most efficient ways in designing and investigating new aircraft. The problem under study is how to check and evaluate flight safety or mission success standards for a new vehicle beginning from the early design and certification phases. This paper will present a technique for examining complex behaviors in the “pilot - vehicle - operational conditions” system using an autonomous situational model of flight. This approach will allow virtual testing and evaluation as an emerging method which employs mathematical modeling and computer simulation for examining vehicle dynamics and flight control under complex operational conditions. An example will be provided for a tilt rotor aircraft, using a dynamics model of the XV-15 tilt rotor research aircraft