Title:

American Helicopter Society (AHS) Nikolsky Lecture

Speaker:

Dr. Gareth Padfield

Affiliation:

Former University of Liverpool Professor and Senior RAE Bedford Flight Test Engineer

When:

Wednesday, October 17, 2012 at 2:00:00 PM   Add to Calendar

Where:

Student Success Center Building, Room Clary Theatre

Host:

Rabins Khatri
rkhatri6@gatech.edu

Abstract

This Nikolsky paper on rotorcraft handling qualities has been written under the enduring influence of a community of very dedicated engineers and pilots. The author looks back nearly 70 years and highlights particular events that reflect the continual growth of the handling qualities discipline and have brought us to where we are in 2012. We are at a point where designers have, within their grasp, the performance standards, criteria and test techniques, the understanding of rotorcraft aeromechanics and control and the design tools to ensure that handling deficiencies never again have to define the boundary of the operational flight envelope. The tension between flight performance and flight safety is properly managed by ensuring that Level 1 handling qualities are there for pilots throughout missions, including degraded environments and hazardous operations. This paper tells the story of how our industry has arrived at this point. Looking forward, we now need to strive for super-Level 1 handling quality, a state where pilot errors, in any shape or form attributable to deficient flight characteristics, are things of the past. The presentation takes the form of a narrative, describing the story of the idea that HQs can be quantified. During the first few years of the 20th century, the Wright brothers had carefully and thoroughly documented developments with their 1901-2 gliders to their 1903-5 powered aircraft. In contrast, no such recordings are available of the flight behavior of rotary wing aircraft in the 1920 or 1930s. The story therefore begins with the post-war work in the UK and U.S. research laboratories to understand better helicopter flight characteristics and the emergence of the first rotorcraft handling qualities requirements specification. The story then unfolds based on documents in the public domain written by engineers and pilots from European and North American industry, research laboratories and academia. This version of the story is also restricted to the single main rotor, “penny-farthing” configuration.

Biography

Dr. Padfield took up the James Bibby Chair in Aerospace Engineering at The University of Liverpool in August 1999, creating the Flight Science and Technology Research Group. He was Aerospace Programme Director until 2006, more than doubling the undergraduate student intake in this period. In August 2004, he was appointed Head of the Department of Engineering, including the disciplines of Aerospace, Mechanical, Materials Science, Manufacturing, Design and Civil Engineering, where he exercised skills in balance and compromise. Gareth Padfield is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 2008. He is an honorary member of the AHS Modeling and Simulation Technical Committee and a member of the Handling Qualities Technical Committee, Safety Committee and Education Committee. He is a member of the Editorial Board of The Royal Aeronautical Society’s Aeronautical Journal.