Handling Qualities Requirements for Future Personal Aerial Vehicles

This paper describes research to develop handling qualities guidelines and criteria for a new category of aircraft: the personal aerial vehicle, which it is envisaged will demand no more skill to fly than that associated with driving a car today. Testing of concept personal aerial vehicle response types has been conducted with inexperienced “pilots” ranging from private pilot’s license holders through to those with no prior flight experience. The objective was to identify, for varying levels of flying skill, the personal aerial vehicle response type requirements that will ensure safe and precise flight. Conventional rotorcraft response types such as “rate command”, “attitude command/attitude hold” are unsuitable for likely personal aerial vehicle pilots. However, response types such as “translational rate command” and “acceleration command, speed hold” permit “flight-naïve” pilots to perform demanding tasks repeatably and with the required precision