Stall/post-stall modeling of the longitudinal characteristics of a general aviation aircraft

The high rate of accidents in general aviation due to pilot loss of control has necessitated the need to find better methods of training pilots. Pilot control and awareness in the stall/post-stall regime can be improved through the use of robust and higher fidelity flight simulators. To create a high fidelity aerodynamic model in the stall/post-stall regime to be implemented in a flight simulator, both steady and unsteady aircraft characteristics need to be represented. In this paper, the detailed development of a steady-state general aviation aircraft stall/post-stall longitudinal aerodynamic model is described. The steady-state model uses a component buildup approach that uses strip theory to output the aerodynamic forces and moments of an aircraft. An integrated non-linear lifting-line theory approach is used to model the wing and horizontal tail. Longitudinal effects due to elevator deflections are also included. Validation studies are performed against static wind tunnel datasets for a typical single-engine low-wing general aviation aircraft design. The validation studies indicate that, given accurate airfoil data, the physics-based component-buildup approach accurately models the stall/post-stall characteristics of general aviation aircraft.