AN INVESTIGATION OF PRIMARY FLIGHT CONTROL FAILURE IN A PILOTED HELICOPTER

The application of fly-by-wire techniques to helicopters allows for a number of advanced control schemes that can be used to enhance perform ance and safety. An experiment has been carried out in a manned helico pter simulator to evaluate the possibility of making use of such a sys tem to allow the pilot to retain control over his helicopter following catastrophic failure of the lateral cyclic primary control. It was de monstrated that a pilot can switch to pedals as the lateral control in put provided that the tail rotor is controlled by an autopilot mode. T he feasibility of this process has been evaluated for a range of contr ol system configurations and the corresponding handling qualities rati ngs are reported.