AE431 - Flight Mechanics Lab

Experiment 3 - Flight Simulation

Ajitha Nishma, Amar Deep Jyoti, Angshuman Bhardwaj,
Ankita Shandilya, Aswin S H, Chintan Panigrahi, Dhirendra Singh Raj
B Tech, Aerospace Engineering
November 6, 2017

1 Introduction
Flight simulation is critical to the operation of civil and military aircraft organisations.
Compared with airborne training, flight simulation reduces markedly the impact on the
environment. It has many other advantages like safety and making flight training more
intensive and cost effective. Apart from this, flight simulation offers major advantages in
designing and developing aircraft systems to analyse designs and to verify system per-
formance prior to airborne trials. They enable recording of enormous volumes of data,
giving designers much valuable insight into their products [2].

Moveable surfaces on an airplane’s wings and tail allow a pilot to manoeuvre an air-
plane and control its attitude or orientation. Flight control systems are subdivided into
what are referred to as primary and secondary flight controls. Primary flight controls
are required to safely control an aircraft during flight and consist of ailerons, elevators
and rudder. Secondary flight controls are intended to improve the aircraft performance
characteristics or to relieve excessive control loading, and consist of high lift devices such
as slats and flaps as well as flight spoilers and trim systems. Trim tabs are small surfaces
connected to the trailing edge of a larger control surface, used to control the trim of the
controls, i.e. to counteract aerodynamic forces and stabilise the aircraft in a particular
desired attitude without the need for the operator to constantly apply a control force [4].
This is done by adjusting the angle of the tab relative to the larger surface. Changing
the setting of a trim tab adjusts the neutral or resting position of a control surface (such
as an elevator or rudder).

2 Theory [3]
The aircraft is said to be trimmed when there is no motion about its center of gravity
(C.G.). This happens when the aircraft is not conducting any manoeuvres. The moment
coefficient Cm of an aircraft under trim condition is given by the expression (subscript
under Cm stand for partial derivative of Cm with the parameter in the subscript):
Cm = Cm0 + Cmα α + Cmδe δe + Cimh ih

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 Figure 1: Graph of Cm vs angle of attack [3].

Fig.1 shows the variation of the Cm with angle of attack (α) for different elevator
deflections (δ). The slope of the graph i.e. Cmα is negative which implies that a positive
change in α brings a negative change in Cm . So if the trim angle of attack increases
slightly, it will will result in a decrease of aerodynamic pitching moment and vice versa.
This gives the aircraft a tendency to move back toward the initial trim condition. Thus,
longitudinal static stability requires Cmα to be negative.

Another prerequisite is that the aircraft is trimmed at a positive angle of attack

always. This gives the following equation:

Cm0 + Cimh ih > 0

The moment of all forces acting on the aircraft about its C.G can be given by the
expression:

Mcg = L(xcg − xAC ) + MAC

Non-dimensionalising this:

Cmcg = Cl (x̄cg − x̄AC ) + Cmac

We take the derivative of the whole expression with α. Cmac does not change with change
in α, so the expression becomes:

Cmα = Clα (x̄cg − x̄AC )

For longitudinal stability, Cmα should be negative which implies that x̄cg − x̄AC < 0 i.e.
the aerodynamic centre (AC) should be farther aft from the position of the centre of
gravity.

2.1 Neutral point and static margin

Static stability is defined as the ability of an aircraft, when perturbed from steady state
conditions, to bring about further changes that tend to restore it to its original speed

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 Figure 2: Cm vs CL graph for an aircraft [3].

and orientation, without human or machine input. Cmα = 0 will imply neutral static
stability. This can be possible when the location of CG coincides with the location of
aerodynamic centre in an aircraft. The aircraft AC location is also called the stick fixed
neutral point of the aircraft.
Static margin (SM) is defined as the distance between CG and AC non-dimensionalised
wrt the mean wing chord. It is given by the expression:

SM = (x̄AC − x̄cg ) = (x̄N P − x̄cg )

CLα is positive for lift coefficients below stall. From the Cmα expression it can be seen
that a positive static margin will result in a negative Cmα . Thus, a positive/negative
static margin results in positive/negative longitudinal static stability respectively. A
static margin equal to zero results in neutral longitudinal static stability.

Cmα = −CLα (SM )

and
Cm α
SM = − = −CmCL
CLα
To determine the neutral point, a series of trim points are flown with several different
CG locations to generate plots of δe vs CL . The location of the neutral point is extrap-
olated by plotting the slope of each δe vs CL line (for each CG location) with respect to
CG location as illustrated in Fig.4

3 Flight simulator
FlightGear Flight Simulator is a free and open source multi-platform flight simulator
developed by the FlightGear project. It was used to simulate the flight of the Cessna
172P ’Skyhawk’ aircraft model. The aircraft model is as shown in Fig. 6. FlightGear uses
’JSB Sim’ as the flight dynamics model which helps in modelling the real flight conditions.

Aeromatic, an open source aircraft configuration file can be used to create a complete
aircraft and JSB Sim can be used to test it under flight simulations. The Flight data is
recorded as a text file for further analysis.

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 Figure 3: Trim δe vs CL [3].

Figure 4: Flight test neutral point determination [3].

Figure 5: FlightGear Logo

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 Figure 6: Cessna 172 ’Skyhawk’ [5]

3.1 Flight simulation performed and some observations

Following observations were made during the flight of the model airplane and are ex-
plained below:

3.1.1 Yaw during Take-off

During take-off a slight tendency of the plane to turn to the left was observed. This is due
to prop-wash. Propeller pushes air in a helix and thus the wind has a slight horizontal
component as well. This horizontal component is responsible for turning the plane to left
and thus the airplane yaws.

3.1.2 General left turning tendency of aircraft

Propeller torque effect is responsible for this observation. It is generally seen as a left
turning tendency in piston single engine propeller driven aircraft since most single prop
aircraft rotate clockwise. According to Newton’s 3’rd law the propeller if turning clock-
wise it imparts a tendency for the aircraft to rotate counterclockwise, they rotate to the
left, pushing the left wing down [6]. To counter the aircraft roll left, the right aileron is
applied, but this correction induces adverse yaw, which is corrected by moving or trim-
ming the rudder (right rudder). On aircraft with contra-rotating propellers, the torque
from the two propellers cancel each other out, so that no compensation is needed.

3.1.3 Not stable flight even when not touching any control.
The possible reason for the same might be improper trimming. The aircraft is untrimmed
and thus will not be in equilibrium at all times and thus stable flight is difficult.

4 Procedure
The experiment was conducted with different locations of centers of gravity of the aircraft.
The CG was fixed for each iteration of the simulation before take-off. After take-off, a
steady level flight was achieved and information about angle of attack with respect to

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different elevator deflections was recorded. The elevator trim tab was used to maintain a
fixed value of elevator deflection. Once the trim tab was set, the transient behaviour of
the aircraft angle of attack was recorded while the aircraft settles into equilibrium. Once
the equilibrium was achieved, the trim tab was changed to a new position. After this,
the aircraft was brought to ground, the CG position was changed and the procedure was
repeated.

5 Results and Discussion

It has been discussed previously that to find out the neutral point, we check the variation
of elevator deflection v/s the aircraft lift coefficient. However, here we make an approxi-
mation that : Cl =aα, where a is a constant. This is almost always true before stall. With
∂δe
this approximation, we get that ∂Cl is proportional to ∂δ∂α
e
. So even though the slope of
the δ vs Cl graphs will not be same as that of the δ vs α graph, the point of intersection of
∂δe
∂Cl
and ∂δ
∂α
e
on the CG axis, will not be significantly different. As such, all further calcula-
tions are carried out with angle of attack, which is assumed to be equal to the pitch angle.

Plots of pitch angle vs time and elevator deflection vs time are plotted to identify
regions with constant elevator deflection angles, as shown in figures 7 and 8. It is ob-
served that every time, a new position is set for the elevator trim tab, there is some
initial transient behaviour before the aircraft goes back to equilibrium. An average value
is taken for the aircraft pitch angle in each of these regions, which is justified under the
assumption of a damped sinusoidal variation of the pitch angle transient behaviour.

Figure 7: Variation of Pitch Angle and Elevator Deflection Angle with time. CG @ 34
inches from nose

The obtained elevator deflection angles and pitch angles were plotted for both the CG
locations as shown in figure 9.

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Figure 8: Variation of Pitch Angle and Elevator Deflection Angle with time. CG @ 41
inches from nose

(a) CG @ 34 inches from nose (b) CG @ 41 inches from nose

Figure 9: Variation of Elevator deflection angle with pitch angle.

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 The negative of slopes from the previous graphs are plotted against CG location to
extrapolate and get the neutral point location, as shown in figure 10. The neutral point
location is obtained to be 58.54 inches from the nose. This is farther from the nose than
any of the CG locations and is expected since the experiments show that the flight was
inherently stable at all of the CG locations where the simulations was performed, as the
flight was flown using trim tabs. The accuracy of this estimation would increase with the
number of CG locations considered. In this experiment, only two positions have been
considered.

Figure 10: Neutral Estimation by Extrapolation

Figure 11 and 12 show the variation of different parameters for two CG locations, CG
@ 34 inches from nose and CG @ 41 inches from nose.

6 Conclusion
• The neutral point location for the aircraft is obtained to be 58.54 inches from the
nose.

• The aircraft is seen to be inherently statically stable as the neutral point is found to
be farther than both the CG locations flown with. The static margin is comfortably
negative.

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 CG @ 34 inches from nose
20
, , deg

0
-20

20
3, Deg

0
-20

0.2
q, rad/s

0
-0.2

5
ax, m/s2

0
-5

0
az , m/s2

-10
-20

200
V1 , m/s

100
0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
50
/ e , deg

0
-50
0 500 1000 1500 2000
Time, s

Figure 11: Variations of different parameters during steady level flight. CG 34

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 CG @ 41 inches from nose
20
, , deg

0
-20

20
3, Deg

0
-20

0.5
q, rad/s

0
-0.5

5
ax, m/s2

0
-5

0
az , m/s2

-10
-20

200
V1 , m/s

100
0
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
50
/ e , deg

0
-50
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 1800 2000
Time, s

Figure 12: Variations of different parameters during steady level flight. CG 41

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7 Sample Calculations
From figure 7 and 8, we obtained the regions with constant elevator deflections. In these
regions, we take an average of the values of the pitch angles to obtain the table ??.

CG 34 CG 41
Pitch Angle (deg) Elevator Deflection (deg) Pitch Angle (deg) Elevator Deflection (deg)
-0.7530 12.2097 -0.4819 15.3360
2.2462 0.0099 0.51390 9.1089
3.9483 -6.1134 3.03590 0.7876
6.4337 -1.2130 7.0258 3.3561

The values in the above table are least square fitted to obtain the variation of elevator
deflection and pitch angle for both the CG locations (figure 9). The negative slopes of
these graphs are plotted against CG axis and extrapolated to obtain the neutral point
location (figure 10). The equation for the extrapolation is obtained as -

y = −0.082943x + 4.8553
Putting y=0 gives x=58.54.

References
[1] Flight stability and automatic control by Robert C. Nelson

[2] The Impact of Flight Simulation in Aerospace, A discussion paper by the Royal Aero-
nautical Society

[3] Introduction to Aircraft Flight Mechanics: Performance, Static Stability, Dynamic

Stability, and Classical Feedback Control, Thomas. R. Yechout.

[4] Trim tabs-wikipedia

[5] Cessna172p Skyhawk

[6] User’s handbook for Flightgear

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