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A typical aircraft flight consists of three phases, namely climb, cruise and descent. The purpose of this research was to study the control schedules for a transport aircraft which would result in least fuel expenditure in each flight-segment.

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A programme of research has now been completed in the College of Aeronautics (CoA) at Cranfield University to investigate the use of a Modified Stepwise Regression (MSR) procedure. The technique was applied to data obtained from a small BAe Hawk aircraft model flown in a dynamic wind tunnel facility in order to try to estimate the aerodynamic stability and control derivatives of the model. A variety of preliminary experiments were performed to enable the static stability of the Hawk model to be evaluated and estimates for a limited number of aerodynamic derivatives were obtained. The initial experiments also allowed data acquisition and processing systems to be developed. Experience of flying and controlling the model in the wind tunnel was gained. The MSR technique was implemented in the form of a FORTRAN 77 software program. Computer simulations of both the full scale Hawk aircraft and scaled wind tunnel model were written. MSR was found to produce perfect derivative estimates when using noise-free data produced by the aircraft simulations. Various mathematical models were produced to represent the reduced order small perturbation equations of motion for the Hawk in the wind tunnel. Different methods for re-constructing the perturbation variables were implemented. Although the MSR procedure did not perform optimally with experimental data, some insight into both the MSR method and the practical difficulties associated with using a small dynamic rig has been gained.

Recent advances in composite structures and active control systems have made the concept of a forward swept wing aircraft a viable alternative to the more conventional configurations. This thesis encompasses some of the work resulting from a three year research program covering the dynamic behaviour and characteristics of a FSW aircraft having a closely coupled canard. The dynamic model has been based on the output of a first order optimisation routine with emphasis on minimum induced drag and static margin as the two most important criteria. Stability characteristics of the dynamic model were extracted from the transient response tests in both longitudinal and lateral modes by means of a statistical method, namely Extended Kalman Filter (E. K. F. ). In carrying out the dynamic tests, use was made of the facilies outlined by Ref. 8. Validated through computer based experiments, the Extended Kalman Filter algorithm has successfully been applied to the open-loop wind tunnel tests. Simulations of the equations of motion using estimates of stability derivatives obtained in this way closely match the observed behaviour. Furthermore, substitution of aerodynamic data obtained via static wind tunnel measurements in theoretically derived expressions for some of the stability derivatives has resulted in an alternative set of stability derivative estimates. ' Finally, estimates of the stability derivatives obtained with the E. K. F., first order optimisation program and static tests are compared. Although the results are limited to very low subsonic Mach numbers, nevertheless, they are very encouraging. It is hoped that future work might extend the studies into unstable flight regimes.